- 4,000 Persons Visit
. Wizards’ Chambers
. (Continued from page 1)
First research site visited by
The guests was that staffed by
the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology of Cambridge, Mass.
Explained Gerald Gill, MIT
° researcher:
“We’re trying to measure the
gradient of wind on a 55 - ft.
tower. We have two types of in
struments.
“One type we call the slow re
sponse, with instruments at 2, 4,
8 snd 16 meters up the tower.
We measure the wind speed at
each of these levels in miles per
hour. Those needle charts right
now show the wind velocity as
26-miles-per-hour at the top o*
the tower, 13 miles-per-hour at
the 6-meter level at the bottom.
"We also record wind direction
on charts at each of these levels
and the temperature at the var
ious heights. It’s one-tenth of a
degree cooler between 4 and 8
meters, as you can see from this
chart,” and he pointed to multi
colored roll of paper threading
through a battery of instruments.
“This we call the lapse rate—
meaning its warmer on the
ground and cooler as we go
aloft.”
Doctor Gill pointed out the
movie cameras trained on im
provised panels loaded with il
luminated dials, meters and
switches.
“Another type is fast response
equipment. I’m referring to this
"hot .wire anemometer. It mea
sures wind speed, direction and
temperature changes and pro
duces a fast response.”
Pointing to a different panel,
elsewhere in the hut, Gill said:
“Each of these pairs of dials
tens' us what we need to know
from our complex bivanes. The
bivanes are two-directional wea
thervanes, which measure wind
up-and-down and from side-to
side.”
* * *
Fashionable to Photograph—
The bivane was designed by
Gill and built by John E. Luby
of the MIT staff. Luby, a widow
er with four boys planted in a
“Y” camp for the summer, is the
MITs jaek-of-all trades.
“I can design anything and
John will build it,” quipped Gill.
It's fashionable at the wind
lest colony to photograph ev
erything and make certain that
the dale. hour, minute and sec
ond appear somewhere in the
frame of the picture.
The bivane dual readings are
photographed every second. Tem
perature readings, for example,
are photographed on dials to in
dicate one-tenth of a degree
centigrade changes in tempera
ture occurring within one second.
The MIT photography is done
on 35-mm film. Later, it is devel
oped and enlarged. Trained peo
ple view the films and abstract
the desired information.
“For every hour of data we
gather here, it will require six
people about two months to ex
tract the information we need.
We record about 10 minutes
every two hours on days and
nights when we are ‘operational’,”
Gill added.
Other MIT staffers here are
Dr. Harrison Cramer, Dr. Frank
Record and Jim Peers.
* * *
'Child's Size' Brain—
Next stop was at the Iowa
State college hut or tent (actual
ly a GI crossbreed — developed
into mighty suitable quarters for
temporary field laboratories).
“We’re not much interested in
the weather,” said sandy, short
and bespectacled Dr. A. .R. Kas
sander, who heads the Ames del
egation. “We’re mostly interest
ed in automatic analysis of data.
This is one of the big problems
in meteorology. You collect a lot
of data and then it takes people
months and months to analyze
it.
“As soon as the data comes in
by way of our own wind tower,
anemometers and thermometers
and the data is recorded on mag
netic tape, within a few minutes
we can automatically compute
and analyze it.
"This is a small child's type
electronic brain." Doctor Kas
sancLer said wryly, pointing to
an imposing box of spaghetti.
dials, radio tubes and switch
es. "It is an automatic compu
tational type device.
“We’re a good long way in the
direction of being able to have
the data already computed when
a test of this type is completed,’
Kassander added.
Robert W. Stewart, a tall, dark,
handsome native of Salt Lake
City and also an ISC staffer, ex
plained the tinfoil ceiling, air
conditioning and electronic
shielding needed to protect the
delicate equipment.
An improvised sign read: “We
sleep here while the machines
work.’’ An arrow pointed to a cot
neatly tucked under a work
bench.
Kassander devised and Stew
art, R. M. Richards & Co. of the
Iowa State physics staff built
pingpong ball anemometers,
which appear to be doing their
job admirably well. The halved
10-cent balls mounted on a small
spindle rotate with the wind. A
feeble roltage connects to the
spindle and counts the turns. This
voltage excites a few thousand
dollars’ worth of tape recorders
and amplifiers and, presto, the
data goes on file.
Most of the Iowa State equip
ment has been designed by Kas
sander for this job.
Fine thermometers take the
temperature of the air two hun
dred times a second. The ther
mometers are 13-one-thousandths
of an inch in diameter—a barely
visible metal ball that increases
and decreases current flow as
the temperature changes. This
excites tape recorders, the re
corders touch off intricate relays,
and 110 counting machines begin
to chatter on a massive bank (or
control board). This is the elec
tric analyzer converting warm
Nebraska wind into cold statis
tics of special interest to scien
tists.
Sixty thousand dollars worth
of equipment and time invest
ed — all custom-built and as
sembled for the O'Neill job.
And integral parts of the Iowa
State system are sliced 10-cent
pingpong balls and the inex
pensive rubber tip of a crutch.
“Turbulence, which we are
studying here, is very important
to agriculture and the results of
the O’Neill test will have a di
rect application in agriculture,”
Doctor Kassander explained.
“The eddys in the wind are the
chief agency for transporting
dust, pollen grains and moisture.
The amount of turbulence de
termines the best times for
spraying fields for insects and
weed killing. Too much turbu
lence spreads the spray all over
and it won’t do much good. There
are groups that are working on
forecasting the best and most ef
ficient times for dusting and
spraying, taking into considera
tion atmospheric turbulence.
“There is an enormous indus
trial application of our electronic
analysis equipment. We’re get
ting lots of inquiries from big
companies. Equipment of this
type is being used for automatic
process control and automatic
factories, which we’re beginning
to hear a lot about, also in cen
sus-taking, and in fields where
an enormous amount of data
must be handled.”
* * *
Housewife Overlooked—
Thus, Iowa State’s contribution
seems to have rather vital mili
tary, agricultural and industrial
applications. The only fellow ISC
overlooks here is the housewife.
The Texas A&M research
foundation has on the line, next
in order, a shiny silver trailer
that groans under the weight of
its equipment. Dr. A. H. Glaser
says his machine does the same
thing only in a different way.
“Most of the equipment we’re
working with is owned by the
Woods Hole Oceanographic Insti
tute of Woods Hole, Mass. The
work is under navy contract, and
we are here to observe wind
gusts, wind fluctuations and tem
perature fluctuations and from
that derive the heat flux from
the surface of the earth.
“Some of the our Texas A&M
equipment measures wind gusts
in both the horizontal and ver
tical directions. Our instrumenta
tion is largely self—or automatic
—computing.
"There are a variety of pur
poses why we are interested in
heat flux. One is agriculture.
The heat flux to and from the
earth's surface determines
largely the life and growth on
the earth's surface." Glaser
said.
Glaser, a native of Seattle,
Wash., succumbed to a Texas bid
once-upon-a-time and has been
a Texan (minus the drawl) ever
since.
Wind at the Texas A&M
Woods Hole lab is measured
through a tiny rod thht is whirl
ed at high speed. The wind di
rection and force are traced, elec
tronically on a graph and the
computations are produced via
another electric brain, which does
“10 or 20 very complicated cal
culus or trigonometry problems
every second.
“These senseless wiggles on the
chart (graph) are transformed
into numbers, which we can use,
with a special machine,” Glaser
continued.
• * *
'Nervous Breakdowns'—
“Our electronic brain has had
a number of ‘nervous break
downs’ — just about like people
have. Some adjustment is set a
bit too sensitive and there comes
a shock of some kind. Then of a
sudden we begin getting wrong
answers. We have to stop it,
throw the switches and twist the
dials and start all over again.”
The Woods Hole group also op
erates a PBY seaplane out of Lin
coln (also lands at Norfolk). It
measures temperature and wind
changes with elaborate equip
ment aboard and hovers over the
site for extended periods of time.
Dr. Vern Suomi of the Univer
sity of Wisconsin says his mission
—along with three other grad
uate students and staff members
—is to measure “what happens
to the sunlight” or the “heat bud
get.”
“The sun is the source of ener
gy for our weather. We want to
know how much penetrates into
the ground and warms the soil,
how much is reflected back into
space, how much is used to evap
orate the water, and how much
is used to heat the air near the
ground.
“We expect to use a lot of our
findings in behalf of agriculture,”
Doctor Suomi declared.
A Wisconsin staffer pointed our
in the Wisconsin trailer what h'_
described as a Brown self-record
ing potentiometer. Want to know
what it does?
Its purpose is to lake the
signals from the various instru
ments, measuring the various
perimeters of interest to us,
and record them on these charts
so we can look up the charts
later on and evaluate the data.
“We’re studying below the
earth’s surface and up to a height
of about 60 meters,” Doctor Suo
mi added.
Also on the Wisconsin site are
Lee Simms and Bill Lowery.
• * *
Inconspicuous—
Mingling in the vast crowds of
gaping sightseers were Dr. Heinz
Lettau, ranking German meteor
ological scientist now working
for Uncle Sam, a director of the
project, and Ben Davidson, civil
ian scientist affiliated with the
geophysics research directorate
of the Air Force-Cambridge le
search center.
Mr. Davidson is the official
coordinator for the O'Neill
work which is officially desig
nated as the "Great Plains
Turbulence Field Project."
Lettau is a quiet, distinguished
looking, fortyish fellow who
brought his wife and three sons
to O’Neill for the summer. Off
the test site, he gets a big wallop
out of artesian wells and hay
crews at work. But then, that’s a
different story.
Davidson also has his wife and
three children here.
“They’re having the time of
their lives,” the youthful-looking
Davidson happily explains.
Why O’Neill?
That’s a question we’ve of:
asked since last spring when the
word was passed that some sort
of a scientific test would be pull
ed off this summer.
Lettau and Davidson steadfast
ly maintain that O’Neill’s quirk
winters and freakish storms in
recent years have nothing to do
with the selection of the site
They say weather bureau records
were checked over a period of 70
years, steady wind conditions
could be expected here during
August and September, and by
the nature* of the test the site
(Continued in column 6)
I
.
• •
* DUE TO THE
RECENT DEATH OF BELOVED
■
• •
:•
“POP”
THERE WILL BE NO AD
THIS WEEK
ft
Camera at Wind Test
—Official U.S. Air Force Photos.
'
An unidentified teen-age gal strains to peer into a photo
theodolite camera.
rmL.
Don O. Lyons, O'Neill bluegrass buyer (wearing while T
shirl and suspenders) crouches for a gander at photo instrument.
Robert Greenawalt (center, wearing dark glasses) explains
functions of 10-thousand-dollar aerial cameras modified for the
O'Neill project. Greenawalt served with the navy in Europe dur
ing World War II. His English wife and daughter are with him
here.
The substitute 'copter is pictured about six feet off the
ground- The whixlibird was the greslest single attraction on the
lot.
Major Tibbetts, commander of military, lectures on smoke
bomb and lighted balloon techniques to curious throngs.
had to t* somewhere xa the mid
contment area.
Level land with few obstruc
tions was the prime requisite. All
other factors added up and the
finger was put on O’Neil’.
Why O’Neill? has entered many
another person’s mind on and off
the test site and that justifies the
reference here.
The University of Texas at
Austin has a four-man crew on
the line measurir^g ground heat.
* * * •
Frost Protection—
The University of California at
Los Angeles, cooperating with
the Davis college of agriculture
near Sacramento (ag campus of
the University of California),
measures wind and temperatures
up to 50 feet and soil tempera
ture changes. The Cal boys are
working on a navy meteorological
contract, but also have frost pre
vention studies in mind in con
nection with California’s vast
citrus industry.
John Vehrencamp of UCLA
has cut out a circle of prairie
sod. It floats on sensitive in
struments that can measure the
amount of drag or friction the
wind causes on the soil sur
faces.
But Sunday’s wind (13-miles
per-hour near the surface) has lit
tle bearing on frost. When Cal
ifornia has wind blowing at that
clip in the valleys the prospects
of frost are remote.
Hence, when we visited Veh
rencamp’s trappings the wind
was out of the range of his del
icate potentiometers.
For those of you who are in
terested, John’s gadgets can mea
sure force as small as 50 - mil
lionths of a pound of pressure.
The Davis representative is Dr.
F. A. Brooks. Some of the equip
ment they’ve brought along in
cludes sensitive instruments that
simultaneously record soil tem
peratures in 16 buried positions
(as in a large orchard).
“The intelligence is automatic
ally chalked up on an electric
typewriter—16 temperatures ev
ery three minutes,” according to
David Rhoades, wrho was man
ning the typewriter when we
dropped in. Rhoades hails from
Davis, Calif.
Explains Vehrencamp:
“We want to know what effects
combinations of heat produce, or,
what’s going on, weatherwise, in
an orchard all the time. We sam
ple the wind and temperatures
up-and-down the tower and tem
peratures in the soil. We use
thermocouples to pass a voltage
through the sensitive recorders
and come up with degrees Fah
renheit.
“Shearing stress is the techni
cal term applied to the drag of
wind passing over the ground,”
John added.
• • *
Far-Fetched?—
It’s a little far-fetched to have
an elaborate van like California’s
transplanted 1,700 miles to study
Nebraska wind — some of it so
I
| great it’s out of range of the del
! icate instruments. Yet that’s Cal
j ifomia’s role in the O’Neill pro
ject.
“This Nebraska wind! Gee
whiz, you’ve got it!” grinned
John, whose home town is Sun
Valley, Calif.
There's not a doctor's degree,
master's degree or even a bach
elor's degree in charge of the
Sixth weather squadron's mo
bile weather unit from Tinker
Field. Old a. But the outfit is in
good, dependable hands—Da
vidson, Lettau, et al will testify
to that.
The NCO in charge is T/Sgt.
Donald Heggedahl of Kenyon,
Minn-, who launches weather
balloons which will radio tem
peratures and humidity readings
up to 10 thousand feet. Miniature
transmitters are sent aloft aboard
free balloons. A seven-ft. diam
eter cone picks up the feeble sig
nals from the balloons, tracks
the tiny light until it disappears,
or until the batteries on the
transmitter and light peter out,
or until the balloons go aloft so
high they disintegrate.
Heggerdahl’s balloons are rated
at 350-grams. The photo theodo
lite balloons, for example, are
rated from 10- to 30-grams.
Johns Hopkins university of
Baltimore, Md., measures wind,
temperature, dew point, radiation
of heat and the thirst of soil for
water. Its findings will be prac
tically adapted to agriculture
The Johns Hopkins group is
headed by Dr. Maurice Halstead
of Bridgeton, N.J.
The Argonne Laboratory me
teorology group from Chicago
111., is concerned primarily with
measuring wind and has a very
sensitive electronic wind vane.
A detachment from the air
force’s Fourth weather group at
Baltimore, Md., is operating cap
tive (tied) balloons that send
temperature and humidity ead
ings to the ground by wire
Offutt air base, Omaha, is fur
nishing vehicles and support per
sonnel.
Airmen Edward G. Populo of
Pittsburgh, Pa., and David A.
Miller man the big diesel-power
ed AC generators that run night
and-day. The photography sec
tion is headed by T/Sgts. Robert
T. Ashforth of Cincinatti, O., and
John C. Best of Baltimore, Md.
* * *
Real McCoy—
Troop carrier command has
provided the helicopter to replace
the one lost on July 30, when
Dr. Guenter Loeser, another Ger
man scientist, and five air force
personnel were killed in a crash
near the test site.
The 'copter's belly and nose
were opened Sunday for the
curious visitors, most of whom
had never before seen a whirli
bird. Later, the pilot, Capt. J.
T, Butcher, put the machine
through some exhibitional
paces. From it smoke bombs axe
dropped to measure winds dur
ing the day.
That’s it. Once over lightly —
very lightly. The biggest single
event in meterology history . . -
a study that will find its way
into textbooks around the world
... a new reference point in
this phase of science.
The schedule calls for the
windup of the project by Sep
tember 11—most of the college
people having to be back on their
respective campuses immediately
after that date. Cleanup opera
tions will be carried out for sev
eral weeks after that.
Never before have so many
experts and so much equipment
been assembled at one place to
attack the problem of turbulence
in the lower blanket of air in
which we live. The air is expect
ed to “tell all” in the elaborate
O’Neill test.
Mr. Davidson explained:
“We want to get a connected
picture of everything that hap
pens in a section of atmosphere
for a whole day. To do that, each
group has concentrated on mea
suring one thing with a great
deal of precision.” ,
The air force needs the in
formation because turbulence
in tile air is of importance to
everything that passes through
it.
“Turbulence is the irregular
motion of anything,” soft-spoken
Mr. Davidson points out. “If you
don’t stir your cup of coffee, the
sugar on the bottom does oat
spread. When you stir, that s
turbulence.”
'Book Lamin' '—
One of the New Mexico scien
tists got an earful from an af
fectionate father emerging from
the UNM trailer.
The father put his arms around
his son and reassured him:
“Only book lamin’, son, only
book lamin’.”
Nobody here says anything
about it, but the military appli
cation has something to do with
guided missiles, chemical warfare
and atomic radiation. This was
foretold in June at a meeting of
the American Meteorological so
ciety held in Santa Barbara.
Calif. The forthcoming O’Neill
test was discussed there and
news dispatches were used lib
erally in the U.S. press.
I have a hunch if Doc Loeser
were still around he’d derive a
lot of satisfaction out of tlv?
smooth goings-on and the en
thusiasm shown by the fellow*
scientists. Right down the line
they think it’s the real McCoy—
a very worthwhile effort already
highly successful.
It was Doc Loeser who helped
conceive and who sparked the
thing, transforming a half of
a square mile of prairieland into*
a wizard’s paradise.
PERSONAL PROPERTY & REAL ESTATE |
§
I
HAVING DECIDED to move to Idaho, I will offer at public
sale all my personal property and real estate on the prem
ises at west edge of Chambers, Nebr., on .
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1st
Commencing at 1 P.M.
REAL ESTATE
Consists of three acres of land at edge of good town and fine i
community; nine-room modern dwelling with garage, bam,
cement cave, poultry house. Premises are located on State
N Highway 95.
THIS PROPERTY IS WELL-LOCATED WITH ENOUGH
ACREAGE TO AFFORD ROOM FOR SUBSTANTIAL
POULTRY - RAISING AND GARDENING
Terms on Real Estate: 25 percent down on date of sale. Balance of purchase price due on de
livery of abstract of title, when possession will be given.
Household Goods i
2—Dining Tables Sewing Machine Washing Machine
8—Chairs New Nylon Living Room Occasional Table
Tier Stand Suite Rocking Chair
Buffet Piano Coal Heater
Magic Chef Combin. Gas-Coal Small Desk Pingpong Table
Range 2—Chests of Drawers Duafold
Miscellaneous, Etc.
Hay Rack and Gear Milk Cow, to freshen soon Some Old Iron
Loading Chute Hereford Heifer, to freshen Fuel Barrel and Tank
8-Ft. Disc soon Heater — Tank
Terms on Personal Property; Cash
THAINE LEE MITCHELL
? f.
COL. ED THORIN, O'Neill CHAMBERS STATE BANK
Auctioneer & Broker Clerk
