SUBWAY AND SKYSCRAPER "Both know the same pains of birth . . . skyscraper and subway. The same shattering of rock initiated their existence. The scene might well be in the Colorado San Juan . . . a prospect gash with startling Lizard Head raising its peak to sunlight . . . not Columbus Circle, New York, with gleaming buildings towering above subway workers."
So says The Explosives Engineer of the painting which forms the cover of the Science News-Letter this week. The painting, one of a series made for The Explosives Engineer, presents a scene that is within a few feet of a thoroughfare through which tens of thousands pass daily, yet one which only the subway workers see.
But in the mind of the artist this contrast of rough timbers temporarily supporting a street in order that men might travel faster under it, and the completed bulk of a great building, has a significance that matter-of-fact mortals would miss. Here, on canvas, however, he has recorded it.
SOLID MATTER MAY BE WAVES So-called "solid" matter—the bricks of our homes, the sidewalks we walk on, in fact, even the tissues of our own bodies, may consist ultimately of waves, or vibrations. Such is one of the startling conclusions that might be drawn from experiments at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York by Dr. C.J. Davisson, in collaboration with his colleague, Dr. L.H. Germer. An extended account of the researches is given by Dr. Davisson in the Journal of the Franklin Institute.The experiments indicate that electrons—one of the important parts of the atoms of matter—may really be waves, and not the infinitesimally tiny particles that previous scientists have supposed them. What Dr. Davisson and his associate have done is to study the way that a beam of electrons, given off from a glowing electric light filament, is reflected from a crystal of nickel. They found that the electrons were reflected in the same way that light waves would be reflected. That is, if the beam hit the face of the crystal at an angle of 45 degrees, for example, it left at the same angle. As the physicist expresses it, "The angle of reflection is equal to the angle of incidence."
