Steinmetz Lecture

Charles Proteus Steinmetz, bearded, grotesque, labored in an undershirt. Wrapped in clouds of fragrant cigar smoke this hunchbacked Thor dreamed and made possible artificial thunderbolts. This week in Schenectady a dapper, clean-shaven man with the face of a witty and successful banker delivered before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers the Steinmetz lecture, instituted in honor of his late fellow scientist.

He, Robert Andrew Millikan, famed physicist, first isolated the electron, detected the cosmic pulse that throbs in the solar systems of broad-girthed planets and infinitesimal atoms alike. Like Master Electrician Steinmetz, this man of twinkling blue-grey eyes and sparkling wit knows how to make scientific complexities charming as well as awesome. For weeks past in the North, South, East and West he has lectured to make laymen see the unity of movement and purpose in the cosmos enveloping the universe.

Fifty-nine years ago, Dr. Millikan was born at Morrison, Ill. Later at Oberlin College, he attacked Greek and mathematics with zest, took his first degree, an A. B., at 23. The next year, a graduate student and tutor there, his enthusiasm turned to physics. He pursued it at Columbia, Berlin, Gottingen. From 1902 to 1921 he charmed physics students at the University of Chicago. Since 1921 he has been Director of the Norman Bridge Laboratory of Physics at Pasadena, Calif.

For nine years this sturdy, thick-set man with greying hair, who plays golf and tennis as zestfully as he works at physics, delved into the mysteries of atoms, ions, electrons. Often he strode into his laboratory at midnight after dinner or the theatre. For hours, in impeccable evening dress, he tried to measure infinitesimal electrons on oil droplets less than one-thousandth of an inch in diameter, checked his results many a time. At last he isolated the ion, studied its ways and habits. For this he received the Nobel Prize (TIME. Nov. 26, 1923).

For seven years, burying his instruments at sea, flying them high into the sky with kites, lowering them into the snow-fed waters of mountain lakes, Physicist Millikan tracked things uncanny, elusive and unknown. In 1925 he announced his discovery: cosmic rays (Millikan rays) so powerful they could pass through three feet of steel, six feet of solid lead. These rays, bombarding the earth from all directions, come from the disintegrating atoms of embryonic stars (TIME, Nov. 23, 1925).

Many another far-reaching discovery through study and determination Dr. Millikan has made. Among them are the effect of temperature on photo-electric discharge, the determination of the velocities of electrons discharged from metals under the influence of ultraviolet light, the polarization of light from incandescent surfaces, the extension of the ultraviolet spectrum, the laws of reflection of gas molecules, the Brownian movement in gasses and the absorption of X-rays. But, like Scientist Steinmetz, he sees no conflict between science and religion. The blood of staunch, God-fearing New Englanders runs in his veins. His father was a Congregational minister. Queried about the cosmic mind, Dr. Millikan retorted: "Why not say 'God'? . . . I have never known a thinking man who did not believe in God. . . . Science without religion obviously may become a curse rather than a blessing to mankind, but science dominated by the spirit of religion is the key to progress and the hope of the future. . . . The most important thing in the world is a belief in the reality of moral and spiritual values. The second is a belief in the spirit and the methods of Galileo, of Newton, of Faraday, and of the other great builders of this modern scientific age--this age of the understanding and the control of nature. . . . For while a starving man may, indeed, be supremely happy, it is certain that he cannot be happy very long."