From the January 2, 1937, issue

January 3, 2007 at 1:35 pm

FUGITIVE BEAUTY OF SNOW CAPTURED BY CAMERA SKILL

Only a little snow, in the branches of a little tree; but it was exactly the right kind of snow, in exactly the right place, with exactly the right light behind it, seen with the eye of an artist and bound to a photofilm, so that its beauty might endure after its substance had been blown down by the wind or melted by the sun. W.C. West of Chicago, who made the picture on the front cover of this week’s Science News Letter, calls his composition “Translucence.”

ONE FOLLOWED BY 110 CIPHERS—LARGEST REAL-MEANING NUMBER

Ask a small boy what is the largest number that has any real meaning and he may answer 100, thinking of lollypops. A business man, thinking of dollars, might say 1,000 trillion. But the answer is 100, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000. Or the figure 1 followed by 110 ciphers.

Authority for the world’s largest physically real number is Dr. Karl T. Compton, president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was put forth in his address as retiring president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The number represents the number of those smallest things in the universe (electrons) which could be packed side by side into the largest volume so far measured (the limits of the present known universe).

Speaking on “The Electron: Its Intellectual and Social Significance,” Dr. Compton warned that “progress comes not by revolution or discarding of past knowledge and experience, but is built upon past experience and is its natural extension once the vision from new vantage points is secured.”

ROBOT “BRAIN MACHINE” CORRECTS SCHOOL EXAMS

A robot “brain” that corrects school exam papers at the rate of 900 an hour with more than human accuracy is education’s latest tool, Prof. Ben D. Wood of Columbia University, New York, announced before the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The new test scoring machine promises to make it possible for teachers to give daily or weekly tests to their pupils and yet not spend as much time as they do now correcting the papers.

But there is one note of joy for the pupil. The testing robot demands that the examinations be in form of “right” and “wrong” questions, answered by blackening the proper vertical space on an answer form with a lead pencil. The pupil does not have to write anything, just make a mark.

Perfected by a leading business machines company, it has been used to score about 400,000 New York State objective tests for intelligence, achievement, interest, and personality. In this work it saved $15,000 in labor of scoring alone.

In the coming year it is planned to produce the robot examination machine in quantity and begin its widespread introduction into schools throughout the nation.

Mechanically the testing machine is able to function because a soft lead pencil mark conducts electricity. The pupil marks his answers on a special blank. This is slipped in the robot tester and covered by a mask that allows only the right answer marks to be recorded electrically on a dial. Since the machine “sees” as many as 150 answers at one time and grades them instantly, it works very fast.