100 YEARS AGO

It is stated in the Times that the committee, presided over by Mr. Haldane, M.P., appointed to consider the allocation of the increased grant-in-aid of education of a university standard in arts and science has now finished its inquiry... the committee proposes that the sum of 45,000/. be allotted as follows: — Manchester, 6000/.; University College, London, 5000/.; Liverpool, 5000/.; Birmingham, 4500/.; Leeds, 4000/.; King's College, London, 3900/.; Newcastle-on-Tyne, 3000/.; Nottingham, 2900/.; Sheffield, 2300/.; Bedford College, London, 2000/. ... The committee expresses the view that the time has come for making a new departure in the principle on which State assistance is to be given to the highest education. It is recommended that a moderate sum should be set aside for distribution by way of payment to post-graduate students from the university colleges who devote themselves for one, two, or three years to special problems; and that to ensure the money being applied most efficiently to the stimulation of individual study, ... the distribution should assume the form of a grant made directly to the student on the advice of some impartial authority.

From Nature 16 March 1905.

50 YEARS AGO

Medical findings during the inquiry into the recent Comet disasters have suggested that the possibility of lung damage by impact with a water surface at the terminal velocity of fall (about 160 ft./sec.) should be investigated... Penney and Bickley suggested that the lungs of any man or any animal would be severely injured by transmission of the shock wave set up if the chest wall were flung inwards with a velocity of 20 m./sec. (66 ft./sec.) acquired in 0.5 m.sec. or less... the critical velocity of impact is 99 ft./sec. for a guinea pig, 118 ft./sec for a mouse and 94 ft./sec. for a man... Some animal experiments were devised for testing the validity of these deductions. A vertical catapult was specially constructed for projecting guinea pigs, belly first, into a large tank of water... Grave injury to the lungs, and other viscera, was found in animals projected into water at velocities greater than 104 ft./sec., both anæsthetized and dead specimens giving the same result. ... The closeness of the agreement must be regarded as largely fortuitous in view of the approximate nature of the calculations.

From Nature 19 March 1955.