THE HONG KONG DAILY PRESS, SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 1930.
MAN'S TRIUMPH OVER MATTER.
THEOLOGICAL BOGEYS EXPOSED.
WHAT YOUNG CHINESE ENGINEERS CAN ACHIEVE.
The following is the seeped and last instalment of the lecture delivered at the Hong Kong, University on Thursday evening by Professor Middleton Smith, addressed to Chinese students of engineering:-..
The Harbour Pipes.
It is of local interest, to relate
The Engineer in Chiria. Man of the future will marvel at the muddle of industry in the world of to-day. The glaring distinctions of wealth, with the attendant vul- garity and other debasing in Buences, must disappear as the discoveries and inventions of the new era turg the searchlight upon the greed and selfishness of human parasities. Ostentatious riches and depressing poverty will then до longer exist as they do now almost
The Word "Ekiciency."^ The cäzingers' introduced into the English language the ward effl- cieney; it is applied now to every purpose of your training here is to branch of human activity. Tha increase your efficiency. We try to give you, not only facts, but the no one can be efficient. You have enthusiasm for your work without
seen the results of the great inven- tions, the effect of the experimenta They have goat, but their work re- at other man in other Universities.
Maics We too, shall leave the stage and soon be forgotten; but design. In 1900 Bleriot flew the So it is with all great inventions.side by side. With them will dising monument to everyone who has the University will remain, a last- English Channel. I was in London They are never the work of any one appear the physical and moral wrought faithfully in it and for when the newsboys rushed along mind. They are always a summa-maiming and stunting of the child-the great purpose for which it was with posters proclaiming the un-tion of the work of many the many, omic conditions have warped the and inventors is for the benefit, ren of the poor. Miserable econfounded. For the work of scholars believable. No event in my memory who are often unknown.
instincts and clouded the morality not of one man, not of one class, was so startling. Ten years later,
of millions who might have been not of one nation, but of everyone; happy, instead of brutal, if their and especially those enger and will- at the end of the Great War, aero- It is the discoveries and invenies have been ordered instead of ing to learn. In this University we tions of the last two or three hun discoveries and inventions of the almost at the doors of your homes, being just a horrible muddle. The offer to you, the youth of China, dred years that have etterly trans-past and future will change all that a choice of the wisdom of all ages formed life on this planet. It is horter into efficiency and consequent and all countries. May you take portunities here. and prove your. full advantage of your great op- selves worthy of the faith of the founders and the labour of the never be lost. Modern progress is the staff, who come to you from the The great inventions ca teachers in this University. We, on planted for ever upon machinery, Western seats of learning, believe upon the steam engine, the dynamo, in your efficiency-we also have the whispering ether, and the faith that our work is not wasted myriad hooks in print. It can effort, our exile is not in vain. We suffer no serious check. These new
are sanguine that your training discoveries have served to create a work of all kinds noble, to break That is
bero will make you efficient builders world where it is possible to make of a stable and prosperous China. our hope that is our down the barriers between nations, belief. and to bring together in one great purpose of forming efficient com- munities, all the people of all lands.
that Watt devised a method of making water-pipes lay on the un- even and shifting bed of the river or se Taking the tail of the Tobster na his model, he devised a
tube of iron similarly articulate He was then seventy-five years old. He had put forward hundreds of new ideas connected with engineer- ing, only a
lew of which he patented.
planes at the rate of 10,000 per annum were being manufactured:
Ceas obvious than the machines
built.
Yet but for the amazing growth of knowledge and numerous patents, concerning materials and alloys, such triumphs us the motor ear and aeroplane would have been impossible.
are the metals of which they are
The patent records of the British, French and American offices show that son after Murdoch's inven- tion of producing coal-gas maar efforts were made to use the new fuel in engines. The first commer- cial success was an engine patent ed in 1960. A year inter Otto hit upon the idea of the now famous opportunity to succeed where he never experience sea-sizkness. 'The four-stroke engine. Every gas-enfailed is yours. gine, every mator-car, and aero. plane engine works as be suggested. The patents have expired. Cross- ley's purchased the right to use them in England. That led to ons of the most famous legal cases which provided lawyers and expert wit nesses with fees totalling, it is said, about £100,000. Crossley's won, and made much profit out of the patents..
Value of Alloys.
The Great Transformation.
Harnessing & Giant.
For
content.
The foundations of the future happiness of mankind have been laid. They are firm on the rock of
facts.
A Difficult Struggle.
In China the struggle is particu larly difficult. Man's best instincts are warped by the combined effect economic conditions, and a society of an enervating climate, miserable
in chaos.
utilise the forces of nature and the experiment: the secrets of how to inventions of men of all countries. It is as if a hand had been placed on the head of a thoughtful man. and had turned his eyes about from the past to the future.
It is for you to develop the mines, the transport facilities, the water- power, the industries and agricul- it-tural possibilities of your country. Not the War Lords, not the poli- ticians, but the engineers and the traders of China will bring pros perity and peace to the country. Steam, the petrol engine, and elee- tric power must be used to do that.
the inventions that have altered the economic, intellectual, and almost every other condition of our exist Working as an assistant to Watt,
ence. They have crowded in, upon when the latter built steam engines, was "another remarkabla inventor
us during these past few years until named Murdoch. He first pro|tween eight or nine centuries ago,
In Doomsday Book, written be nothing seems impossible. duced gas from coal for illuminar ing purposes. Until that invention read that iron was forged in These are the pillars of modern oil and tallow candles had pre- England. About six centuries ago science and of the modern dynamic vided the only artificial light. the iron cooking-utensils of the civilization.
King of England were classed as
We depend, for the Murdoch did not patent his idea, on jewels: An epoch was mark extension of our knowledge, beyond but the Royal Society of, England. in 1508 awarded him a gold medal by Bessemer's cheap mild sirel in that of the savage, upon means of for his paper describing his system
1863. This invention is probably aiding our primitive sendes. of producing coal-gas. He showed on second in importance to that there is a great world beyond these that if ordinary coal were placed of the steam-engine, so far-reaching senses which is only opened up to in an iron vessel and heated over.
were its consequence. The simple us by mechanical apparatus. Our A fire, gas would be driven off.
idea of blowing air through liquid sight, our hearing, our sense of The gas could be lighted. and could
cast-iron, as to convert it into touch is crude, inaccurate, unre- be used as an illuminant or heat-forgeable steel, was the basis of this liable and apt to delude. To build ing agent,
invention. It is of interest to re-up the vast pile of records of past who were in Bessemer's works re and experiment, concerning the Iste that each of the five partners failures and successes in experience tired after fourteen years, having world in which we live, we must made an average of nearly cent, perhave tools. Not just knives and China taught only the wisdom of leent every two months. Bessemer shovels, but delicate instruments
For generations the scholars of also carried out costly but unsucand mechanical constructions of all the ancients, learned nothing new steamship, whose passengers would possession of these that differenti:sity opens up to your minds the cessful experiments to produce sorts. It is the discovery and
of the laws of nature. This Univer-
people of a hundred centuries ago. ates our lives from those of the larger synthesis; the methods of
Without then we should be specu lating, dreaming, and ignorant still of the world in which we live. The It would be possible to give a local Institution of Engineers and series of interesting lectures on in-Shipbuilders has invited me to read ventions concerning the methods of a paper on measuring instruments, making metals and alloys used by and in a few weeks I propose to inventors. Until a few years ago develop that subject of the world Bessemer steel was used for all beyond our senses more fully if and muchifery requiring resistance to a when the opportunity presents pall or tension stress. Nowadays self. we have the remarkable steel alloya, The Petrol Engine.
The addition of some other metal Next we have the work of 'Daim-such as tungsten or vanadium, en The effect of the work of those ler who, in 1884, built a small en
tirely changes the properties of the who have discovered and invented gine to use benzine as fuel. His material. We recently tested some these great aids to our natural great contribution was the carburet alloy steel that carried a tension cases is inspiring. By the accum for, which turns the liquid petro pull to twice as much as mild steellation of exact knowledge concern- juto a gas. The petrol-engine is
čno take. In other words, we can ing the laws of Nature they have really a gas engine, for it uses n use one pound of that material in- been able to harness the giant mixture of air and petrol-gas to stead of two pounds of steel in a Steam until he does for use the work of a million staves. They btain the heat and pressure need-motor-ear or aeroplane. ed to make the engine to work. There are many other alloys:-
have utilised the energy of a wind The sole purpose of the petrol-gas especially interesting are those of and of the torrent to produce clee is to make an explosive mixture which aluminium is the base. When wires and gives us light and power tricity, that silently travels on,
Permanent Things. that will give out heat. Liquid first introduced in 1851 aluminium
Valike dreams and men, inven- petrol will not do that-Daimler cost £50 per 1h. Three years later or our factories and our homes. made the motor-car and aereplane it was sold at £2. With the deve-They have prolonged life by prov tions are permanent. The actions possible by inventing the apparatus lopment of electricity and water-
ing that the human machine works of bad men produce only temporary which easily changes the liquid power it was sold in 1801 at 21dfight, and needs as fuel, pare food temporary good; and eventually the most efficiently in fresh air and sun-evil; the actions of good men only petrol into petrol gas.
per lb. Aluminium is made from of definite composition. They have good and the evil altogether subside Another most important invention common clay. It is light, and thrown the fierce searchlight of and are neutralised by subsequent was the electric spark-ignition, or alloyed with copper and other publicity upon
That grew out of metals, provides very useful mate-setions of all men, The printing went of the ages brings to the sur
the words and generations. the magneto.
The incessant move- Faraday's great invention of the rials. Alloys are not only becom
press and electric light have done face, for a short span, both the good dynamo. Just as Wait showed using stronger, they are much more
more than all the police in the and the evil in human nature. The how to convert heat into work, so
reliable.
world to remedy social evils and to deeds and words of good and bad did Faraday show the work a pro-
Numerous inventions "have been keep men aware of the difference men are often forgotten; but the duced could be changed into electric made in connection with the testing between good and bad. They have discoveries and inventions of great of kinds of materials. We have created leisure so that we may cul- men never leave us. The men dis- Untcientific Legislators.--
examples of many such ingenious tivate an appreciation of beauty. appear and are lost to memory; but devices, which we are always pleased They have raised immeasurably the the machine goes on at work. Mil- Unfortunately for inventors, poli- to show visitors in our materials-average standard of living. The lions who are carried by steam have. ticiana are invariably unscientific testing" laboratory in this Univer lower grades of society in England never even heard of Watt, and his Thus it came about that although sity.
to-day have as necessities things name will soon be as mythical as Watt's pumping-engine was put on
A Gradual Growth.
which Kings of bygone ages would that of Hermes. Bessemer and wheels more than a hundred years
Grent invention are never, and have called miraculous luxuries.
Faraday are names known to few ago, the development of the motor. car in England was grently retard work of only one mind.
out of Britain, and in a century grent discoveries are seldom, the Old Bogeys Disappear. ed by Parliament. As soon as the great invention is really a consum
Every!
they, too, will be as mythical as first steam engine driven vehicle ap: mation of minor inventions, the matter, mind, and life itself-are Babylon.
All visible and invisible things that of any Gad of ancient Greece peared on the roads of England Anal step of progressive ideas. It being explained by simple mechani Parliament introduced what is is not a creation but n growth-as cal lawa. The same methods which known as the Red-Flag Act. It was truly so as is that of the trees of have relieved us from the terrifying not until 1896 that the Act was the forest. repealed. Before, that date it was
power.
In time the discoveries, and inven tions, made not only in Europe and America, but also in Asia, will have their effect. They will eventually lift the burden of toil and poverty from the lives of the millions in China whose days are now only drudgery and hunger.
and fantastic motions of our ances a crime to drive a moter-car more This wonderful new gift to man-
tors, and brought in their stead than four miles an hour in the kind called broadcasting is clear and rational ideas of the towne. Also the Act required that a voice that may be many miles scientific organisation of a world work. We are instinctively forced country and two miles an hour in example. You know that you hear universe, will make possible the
three persons, one walking in front carrying a red flag!
that of horse-drawn carriages
AT
given out by the speaker whose
in
UNDERWOOD
To-day there are hundreds, if not thousands, of then trying to make Practicable some new method of cheap production of electrical. energy. It will come-and the re- sults will be increased efficiency. For there is a law of Nature as eor- tain as gravitation. Man must casily be arranged that the voice is and morals are all so chaotic as
Our present not only carried hundred, or even to be a menace to mankind. The sats and the bees.
social and economie organisation The design of early cars followed but that actually the voice, that peared. There is not an intelligent allows only a few to satisfy that
thousands of miles instantaneously, old bogeys of thrology have disap- Railway trains had been made the hear, in louder that the sounds Mosiac story of the Creation is rational. Properly organised there. man to-day who believes that the instinct in surroundings that are width of stage coaches. That was to voice and tones are so accurately in the year 4004 B.C. We don't the past have done much to bring true, or that the world was created is work, wealth, and leisure for all please people and to reassure the
The discoveries and inventions of mandarin politicians of the day in reproduced. Who made that po frighten our children bowadays as happiness. Surely with the re- England.
sible. It is the conjoint triumph of Clerke-Maxwell and, of other with pictures of hell-fire and cord of the last few years, with such Although in 1895 all vehicles in workers in a dozen centres of learn-burning lake. London were horse-drawn, withining all over the world.
obvious triumpha as steamships, Just as "Bessemer, with his blast electric light, broadcasting and fly- twenty years horses had practically Finally, in the University of of air, made a new and valuable ing, we can be sanguine of a not disappeared in London. The maay Liverpool, there was sent and re- material out of the ingredients that far distant future when every in- inventions" connected with motor-ecived the first wireless message. men had uses for centuries, so can habitant on this planet will be able. care produced a lighter and yet Lodge did that. His grent contri-you, with your scientific knowledge, to work under conditions free from more powerful petrol engine, which Jution was the " de coherer" which make out a new national life from anxiety, poverty and existing evils. was what was needed for flying.
made it possible to pick up or re- the accumulated materials in books ceive the waves, and so hear the of all countries and of all ages. the Grand Canal and the Great Your ancestors built great works; voice that is carried on the ether. Have a knowledge of history; but Wall of China are monuments of The early workers on flying Marconi with his kites and his high don't dwell too much on the ideas their efforts. machines took. birds as their models. masts was the practical man who of centuries ago, for always to inum- the world was very limited as com- Their knowledge of They designed elaborate flapper" transformed the laboratory experi- ble over the ashes of the past ispared with what is available for wings. The engines were steam, I ments into a great industry. Simi- but senility. Build on facts-fie- you. This University offers you anw Sir Hiram Maxim nearly thirty larly with the light and powerful tion is delightful as a recreation, remarkable opportunitica. It was years working on his large steam-petrol-engine, the metals of which but never accept a statement or founded by benefactors, Chinese and driven aeroplane near London. But it is built, the machines that fashion theory until you have seen it tested British, who, too, looked forward. the Wright Brothers realized the it, and the numerous pccessories of and tried in practice. Experiment They had faith that you, the malle- advantage of the light potrol engine, the aeroplane. Thus the story goes on a small scale before you incurable material of youth, would have and in 1903 made their famous on. From many countries have large expenditure of time and the qualities of strength, tenacity, fight of filty-nine seconds. For come ideas that have made the money. This applies emphatically and endurance necessary to take years previously they had accumu-miracle of yesterday seem the com-to social science, as well as to full advantage of your opportuni fated data about the air and wing monplace of to-day.
things more concrete.
ties.
The Fliers.
Haig
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