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Two years ago Professor Harold Clayton Urey of Columbia discovered a heavy kind of water. Each molecule contained one atom of oxygen and two atoms of hydrogen, just like ordinary water. But the nucleus of this hydrogen was twice as heavy as the nucleus of ordinary hydrogen. Physicists soon called this newly recognized hydrogen nucleus the deuton. At the University of California Professor Lawrence accumulated a supply of deutons, put them under a tremendous magnet he has, and whirled them until they were going as fast as 2.000,000 volts would have driven them. Then, like a boy with a sling shot, Professor Lawrence slung the deutons at atoms of lithium. The impacts knocked helium nuclei out of the lithium, which to that extent was trans muted. Similarly Professor Lawrence chipped helium out of nitrogen, aluminum, beryllium, magnesium, sodium, calcium, boron. Next he will try to bash deutons against deutons, hoping to create helium in that way.
Man. Though few laymen could fathom the esoteric jargon of the physicists, the report brought from Barcelona by Psychologist Emilio Mira was perfectly understandable to every housewife and office husband. Dr. Mira had asked 578 married couples which of ten procedures they would follow if they found their spouses unfaithful. Most husbands (187) would try to surprise the lovers in flagrante delicto, then seek a divorce. Most wives (185) would leave their philandering mates but would not tell their friends why. Eleven wives would kill the husband, only five would kill his mistress. Twenty-one husbands would kill the wife, eight would kill her lover. Because Spaniards are hot-blooded traditionalists, 49 husbands elected a duel with the interloper. Surprisingly, 18 wives elected the same thing. Nevertheless, Dr. Mira concluded that moral problems are not similarly faced by persons of similar cultural background.
But to cultural background Dr. Mandel Sherman of the University of Chicago found the kinks of mental disease closely related. Among Protestants under his observation, 57% of abnormal hallucinations pertained to religion, among Catholics only 27%, and of the hallucinations among Jews none at all had to do with religion.
Old is the knowledge that music and mathematics are kin; many a famed musician has been handy with figures. The veriest dauber knows about dynamic symmetry which is, in a sense, geometry in art. But Harvard's Professor George David Birkhoff would link mathematical principles to all esthetic appreciation. Last week in Chicago Professor Birkhoff said that primitive man liked to gaze at the full moon because it was a precise geometrical figure. His hearers tittered when he passed from music and the contours of vases to poetry. Suavely Dr. Birkhoff informed them he had written a six-line poem keyed to the mathematical formula. When he had finished his talk, someone called for the poem. Professor Birkhoff shrugged, said: "I dislike to be put in the position of a small boy at school, but I'll read it." He did:
Wind and wind the wisps of fire,
Bits of knowledge, heart's desire;
Soon within the central ball
Fiery vision will enthrall.
Wind too long or strip the sphere—
See the vision disappear!