100 YEARS AGO

Prof. A. H. R. Buller, writing from the University of Manitoba, describes some striking electrical effects due to the dryness of the atmosphere at Winnipeg... When the thermometer is low, ranging as it often does for a week or more at a time from 0° to −40° F., very little friction, such, for instance, as may be produced by walking along a carpet, causes a person to become charged with sufficient electricity to produce a visible and audible spark on touching an iron bedpost, the radiator, the gas-tap, or any other conductor. It is a favourite amusement of some children to take sparks from each other's noses after running about a carpeted room... Many ladies have considerable difficulty in combing their hair; for during the process it becomes so charged with electricity that it stands out in the most astonishing manner... It is quite easy to light the gas with a spark from the finger when matches are not handy by merely shuffling a few paces over the carpet and then holding a finger to the burner.

From Nature 9 March 1905.

50 YEARS AGO

“Scientific Progress and Security Regulations.” ... Dr. Hildebrand insists that positive achievement and progress, not the negative policy of restriction and security, provide the only firm basis of security... Security-screening programmes are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. Their role in defence policy is negative rather than positive. They may deprive a potential enemy, at any rate temporarily, of information about armed forces or the development of new weapons; but they create no new weapons themselves... What has now to be recognized is that, with the essential dependence to-day of military strength upon science, the security practices used in the past to safeguard military information are no longer fully valid. Scientific knowledge cannot be kept secret by such means. Progress in science is a cumulative process in which each scientist builds upon what is known, and national boundaries and security systems cannot contain this process of extending knowledge without so discouraging the spirit of inquiry that the state of learning and of technology as well as the rate of scientific progress are adversely affected. At best, among advanced nations, security measures can provide an advantage of time: there is no such thing as a permanent scientific secret.

From Nature 12 March 1955.