It was at the end of a year in the flood tide of science that the American Association for the Advancement of Science held its annual meeting last week in Philadelphia. It had been the year in which:
Experimenters in Belgium, Germany and California had failed to corroborate the ether drift findings of Dr. Miller of Cleveland, thus tending to substantiate the Einstein theory of time-space relativity.
Dr. Millikan of California had verified the existence of cosmic rays of great penetration, Dr. Kolhoerster of Germany tracing their source to the constellations Orion, Hercules and Andromeda, where new stars are forming.
Dr. Michelson of Chicago had remeasured the speed of light, setting it at 186,284 mi. per sec.
Dr. Keeson of Holland had solidified helium.
Dr. Hopkins of Illinois had isolated a new chemical element, No. 61 in Mendeleev's table, and named it Illinium.
Dr. Sumner of Manhattan had isolated the first enzyme.
Dr. Coolidge of Schenectady had produced powerful cathode rays outside a vacuum tube; his colleague, Dr. Langmuir, had perfected a hydrogen-hydrogen welding flame, the hottest ever; another colleague, Dr. Alexanderson, had nearly perfected radio television.
Mars had come closer to Earth than it would be for another 13 years.
There had been a total solar eclipse, new comets, unusual sunspots and the only perfect lunar appulse in four centuries.
Dr. Streeter of Washington had studied the youngest human embryo yet available (eleven days).
A European fly taken to New England to fight two insect pests had proved itself the enemy of 92 other insects.
Tetraethyl lead (antiknock) gasoline had been declared safe for general use and been put on sale throughout the country.
The National Academy of Sciences, with aid from college presidents, foundations, manufacturers and Secretary Hoover, had launched a campaign for 20 millions to devote to independent scientific research.
These and many more events of 1926 were in the minds of scientific gentlemen who thronged, about 1,000 strong, in 15 sections and 43 allied societies, to Drexel Institute, Philadelphia. There their retiring president, Professor Michael Idvorsky Pupin, onetime Serbian shepherd, now oft-honored electro-physicist of Columbia University, greeted them with poetic discourse upon the progress of electrical communication, beginning with James Clerk Maxwell's monograph on magnetism in 1873 and Heinrich Rudolf Hertz's experiments with pulsations in the ether in 1889, through Marconi's practical application of Hertz's discoveries, to modern radio and radiotelephony. Himself the author of great advances in electrical communication, Dr. Pupin predicted the ultimate translation of cosmic messages from the surrounding universe, especially those emissions of the sun which are now looked upon as nuisances to earthly radio since they cause "static" and "fading."
The scientists (and many a layman, for the meetings were public) attended further discourses, papers, demonstrations, including: