The Science Society

A spelling bee "Arts v. Scientists" followed, the Arts winning.

After three successful impromptu debates, the meeting closed with a panel game, "Talk Yourself Out of This".

During the course of the term the Junior Society again met, and from reports received the Society will continue to receive a flow of forceful speakers. The Society continues not only to have full membership, but to have a waiting list, and this term, if not outstanding, has at least been up to average in the quality of the debates.

The first meeting of the term followed "tradition" and took the form of a film show, the subject matter ranging from geology to modern detergents. The most popular film was entitled "Ten Thousand Feet Deep", this dealt with oil drilling in swamp land.

At the second meeting Mr. R. T. C. Hall gave a lecture on "Modern Telecommunications". After dismissing radio as a means of communication, its defect being the changes experienced in the reflecting ionosphere, the lecturer then considered cables which were responsible for 95% of world traffic. The drawbacks of cable are manifold; indeed a cable might be compared to an enormous resistance joined to an equally massive inductance, but much has been done to overcome this since the days of Edison. "Loaded cable", this is cable wrapped in nickel sheathing, had been one answer, but today co-axial cable was the solution. After explaining the mechanism of a teleprinter and receiver the lecturer demonstrated the working of one, and later allowed several members to operate it.

Several members of the Society had been on short works courses during the Summer holidays, and at the third meeting three of them gave talks under the general heading "Scientific Applications in Industry". D. R. Proctor had seen the production of a wide range of electronic equipment at Pye. E. C. Sedman had been allowed to work in the metallurgical laboratories of English Electric. T. Chilman described his visit to the General Chemical Division of I.C.I., and showed a film prepared by I.C.I. called "Enterprise".

School House provided the lecturers for the fourth meeting, and J. Hick began by describing the "dieselisation" of the railways. The use of diesel locomotives on the railways was a comparatively recent innovation, but now British Railways operated 3,000 h.p. main line engines, and 350 h.p. shunting engines. "The formation of the stars and the way in which they work" was the title of J. G. Slater's talk. A star was formed, he said, from the inter-stellar gas which comprised a galaxy. D. A. Wilson then lectured on "Radioactivity". After tracing the development of his subject from Pierre Curie to the opening of the first atomic pile in a squash court in Chicago, the 31