50 Years Ago

In an article in a recent issue of Minerva ... on “The President's Science Advisers”, Dr. P. H. Abelson discusses the use which the Presidents of the United States have made of the service of a 'Science Adviser' since 1957. Dr. Abelson is concerned with the part which the Science Adviser and his staff have actually played, including his relation to the Office of Science and Technology created in March 1962, and more particularly he directs attention to some of the limitations of the system ... Dr. Abelson goes so far as to maintain that the Science Adviser and his staff have failed to address themselves to many major problems which might be expected to fall within the Science Adviser's responsibility. Instead he believes they have been occupied with many relatively trivial problems, and the consequent exclusion of such questions as whether in the United States the present allocations of money and manpower has led to some discontent with the advisory system.

From Nature 1 May 1965

100 Years Ago

The great consumption of petrol as a motor fuel, which last year, in spite of the disturbing element of war, rose to the enormous volume of 120 million gallons in England, and to nearly ten times that amount in America, has led to the attempt being made to add to the natural supply by the so called “cracking” of the heavy residual oils left after the petrol and the lamp oil have been distilled off from the crude oil ... The term “cracking” is one of those delightful Americanisms which express so exactly the meaning we wish to impart that it has been adopted universally.

From Nature 29 April 1915 Footnote 1