Some of the nouses built to accommodate the personnel
To give a satisfactory answer to the question how Philips came to turn out such a large variety of products, we must first of all consider the objects and methods of Philips Physical Laboratory.
The development of the Philips fac- tories and Philips production is in fact unimaginable without that laboratory, which was first established in 1914, housed in new premises in 1922 and since then has been repeatedly expand- ed. In Eindhoven 150 graduated scien- tists and 650 assistants are engaged in research work and the opportunity thereby offered for the exchange of ideas and cooperation has been fruitful indeed. Furthermore the various manu- facturing departments at Eindhoven and elsewhere have their own develop. ment laboratories employing some 2000 and of these the radio group laboratories may be said to be the most important.
men,
The research work done in Philips Physical Laboratories often produces results in a field entirely different from that originally intended. For instance an investigation that WAS started to determine the efficiency of ultra-violet lamps for combating rachi- tis led to a new method of producing vitamin D; this vitamin is now being produced by an affiliated company, **Duphar'' Co. at Weesp in Hollaud. Investigations made with glass, gases and metals were not only useful for.
The Physical Laboratory at Eind- hoven has in fact acquired a world- wide reputation in the field of radio valves from the Miniwatt valves al- ready mentioned, the pentodes and the octodes, from the transmitting valves with a chromium steel anode fused into the glass and with water cooling, and from the short-wave telephone com- munication at very large distance over- sea which was brought about from the Philips laboratory in 1927. In the field of Roentgenology it was particularly the Metalix tubes made partly of chromium steel which appealed to specialists on account of the protection they afforded against all the risk at- tendant upon working with X-rays and
high tensions. In the X-ray laboratory new apparatus have also been develop- ed for generating ultra-high tensions, ie. for the excitation of artificial radio activity.
Lighting, to which Philips' prosperi ty during the first 27 years was due, has continued to receive full attention in the Physical Laboratory also in later years. As regards the incandes cent lamp 1922 heralded the invention of the coiled-coil tungsten filament, Then there appeared an entirely new source of light, the gas-discharge lamp, which is about to conquer the world. In the gas-discharge lamp the light is produced not by the heat developed by the electric current in a filament but from the atoms of a gas or of a vapor- ized metal under the influence of an electric discharge brought about by the gas.
The first gas-discharge lamp was the sodium lamp with yellow light, which was introduced in 1931 for road lighting. There very soon followed the mercury vapour lamp, especially the super-high pressure mercury lamp hav- ing gained favour by reason of its great brilliancy, approaching that of the sun. Both mercury and sodium lamps excel on account of their high officiency, yielding from 21⁄2 to 4 times as much light AS incandescent lamps for the same current consump tion.
The objection to the colour of tha light, which differs from that of the incandescent light, has ultimately been overcome in the fluorescent lamp, 2 tube in which a low-pressure mercury discharge takes place which yields mainly ultra-violet rays and a very little visible light. The ultra-violet rays, however, cause a powder applied to the inside of the tube to fluorsee, as 2 result of which the lamp gives about three times as much light as an incandescent lamp of the same capacity. What is of most importance is that by mixing different fluorescent powders any colour of light can be
obtained.
Work in Philips Laboratory in the field of acoustics covers not only loud- speakers and apparatus for sound-film
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projection, but also entirely new fields, such as mechanical sound recording ou the Phiups Miller celluloid band and stereophonic sound reproduction. As an outcome of the search for an inex- pensive photographic material for mak- ing copies from the Philips-Miller band the Philips Laboratory has produced a light-sensitive cellophane which, owing to the absence of grains in the pic- ture, also lends itself very well for the micro-photographic reproduction of
books, manuscripts, etc.
What is of primary importance is the fact that in Philips laboratory scientific workers are left to conduct free research on a scale scarcely found elsewhere. There is no hard and fast restricting of their work to a line al- ready laid down, and it is no wonder, therefore, that one often ends up in a field entirely different from that upon which one originally started. Men- tion has already been made of the discovery of vitamin D.
Vitamins could not rightly be said to eome under the electro-technical arti- eles' which one had in mind when the company was founded. In this respect the scope of manufacture has indeed exceeded by far the widest interpreta- tion one could give to the purpose the founders had in view, On the other hand Philips have not covered the whole field of electrotechnical articles, since they have not taken up, for instance, the generation of energy and the transformation and transportation of high power for the electrification of cities, towns and rural districts.
Philips products in the electro- technical line are for the greater part characterised by the application of al- teruating currents of high frequency, a domain the development of which is due to the radio valve, which in the form of a transmitting valve is capable of inducing electric waves of such high frequencies. High-frequency cur- rents were at first only of importance for the technique of communications, wireless telephony and radio broadcast- ing on the one hand and on the other hand telephone repeaters and carrier- wave telephony. In the application of high-frequency technique, with the number of cycles per second being con. tinuously increased-in the case of ultra-short waves 3 milliard cycles per per second and more have been reached -it was found, however, that in the ultra-short-wave transmitter all metal- lie parts became heated by the induced currents and that also all the insulators would do so if they were not made of special materials having extremely low dielectric losses. Bn: good WAN to to come unt of evil, as it were. What was harmful in a transmitter could be turned to good account elsewhere. Tt was discovered that the inductive” losses can be ultilised for heating
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