Brooklyn Technical High School - Blueprint Yearbook (Brooklyn, NY)

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W CHALLENGE ACCEPTED By HERBERT E. LOWE, ss, scribe 2 -jr VERY EVENING at Liber- 'r V ty Lake, to the strains of classical music, 'the colored 2-ll fire would supplement the A , . Q :QQ I lltl, . ',f1 . I A M U vt f orchestral arrangement and 1 2 I rifilill ri, I tual: spectators would sigh en- raptured. That was at the World's Fair and in 1940. The colored fire was combusting chemicals carried to their peak above the tumbling fountains by rockets. Rockets are containers which are propelled by the generation of gases of high pressure and these gases are in turn generated by combusting material . . . rocket fuel. Man grabs a box and cries, I have a rocket! How shall I send it soaring into the sky ? The doors of the laboratory fly open and fling a challenging invitation, I am the way. Come! Man enters and gropes. In time the delicate glistening tubes contain sulphur, charcoal, zinc dust, potassium nitrate or chlorate, and salts of barium and strontium, Why has he chosen these from the thousands of avail- able compounds? Come! Let's see. There, the sulphur bubbles and burns with a slow steady blue flame, He adds this to the potassium chlorate. A hammer descends! . . . the explosion leaves par- ticles of burning sulphur. Now, throw in the zinc dust, the charcoal. Good, we have the noise, the explosion, and also . . . a flash of flame. The strontium! The barium! And sodium! Don't hit it. Touch a match. Ah, Man has burned his 14 hand. That sudden flare! The roar! See? Smoke has billowed forth. Did he feel the air rush past? He did. He's reaching for the mortar. Water! Pestle! Nitrate, not chlorate-chlorate explodes! Zinc dust! Then the rest! I have it now. Watch, soon it will dry. Sun it! Dry it! Grind it! Wet it! Mould it! Now! The tube! The head! The stabilizer! Shaky hands! Flickering lights! Man is at the climax of his search. He mumbles, have a rocket. This fuel will make it 'fly. I light the match, the fuse. Point it up. This way, not that, for it will hit the house! Up, not down! The noise! The swish! Do you hear it? It's working. The gases pour out. The rocket rises. Up, high up! Fifty feet! One hundred feet! Two hundred feet! The secondary fuse is burn- ing. It has burned to the explosives' chamber. The rocket blows up and col- ored lights fly in all directions. Are there tears in Man's eyes? Does he rejoice in his creation? No, he is a brute. An un- feeling, senseless brute! And so, Man, as in his other fields, has groped his way through the darkness to his present height of knowledge. Many believe that in rocketry he has but reached his first step, that in the future better fuels will be discovered and instead of colored lights, the chamber will carry powders of war and destruction. Maybe. Later they will carry men-to the planets -to the stars. Man will once more enter the laboratory doors and accept the chal- lenge of the unknown.

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deed, this last fact strongly suggests that the rays are formed throughout all space. We leave now our logical progression and come to that phase of the research work which cannot, at present, be sub- stantiated, for the mystery of the origin of cosmic rays remains exactly that-a mystery. However, two of the foremost scientists of our day have advanced theories which may be combined into a daring vision. The theories will be ex- plained briefly here. The old distinction between matter and energy is discarded. The two may be interffhanged, though their total must re- main the same. Now let us imagine a star traveling through space. Out of the emptiness about it, it draws to itself soli- tary atoms. Little by little its mass and density increase. As the pressure on the center of the star rises to fantastic heights, the atomic systems can no longer with- stand it, and electrons and protons com- bine. The matter disappears, but energy is liberated. This energy is used to heat the star until its entire contents are in a gaseous state. Then, when further energy is created, it escapes as radiation. How- ever, if all the energy so created remained in space, the sky would be everywhere ablaze with light. Therefore, from the energy of the radiation, new atoms are constantly being formed. These eventu- ally are attracted to a star, to repeat the cycle. It is at this point the conversion of energy into matter-that cosmic rays are thought to be formed. To corroborate this theory, -it has been pointed out that the formation of the four most common ele- ments in space would allow for the four wave lengths in which cosmic rays are suspected to exist. The theory, when set against the mil- lions of years and vast distances associ- ated with the galactic systems, forms a breathtaking panorama of the creation and death of the stars. Even more, it shows us the wonder of mankind's true greatness. For, unable to leave his own tiny planet, unaided by anything but his own intellect man has forced aside one by one, the veils with which nature sur- rounds herself, and with the knowledge so painfully won, has gained mastery over the world in which he lives. 13

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DISCOURSE ON GRAVITY By HOWARD BERNSTEIN, css Dear Diary, X 11 .,., . ERSONALLY I l'l3VC al- , QA' gi ways thought that the sup- gliyll ply of gravity that the 'V' jill. earth holds would some gf jg, day run short. Yesterday this tragic event occurred. About twelve o'clock noon people noticed that they were getting lighter and lighter. In three hours there was absolutely no gravity whatsoever. Walking down the street, I saw a car hurtling towards a man. Instinctively I shut my eyes. When I opened them, I saw the oddest sight I ever hope to see. The car had hit the man but since it had no weight it had not hurt him. But the car! It had used the man as a springboard and was hurtling towards the outer strato- sphere. Because it no longer had any weight it could not get hack to earth. The man in the car was doomed to go flying around the stratosphere till he died of old age. Everywhere I went I saw similar tragedies happening. It does not do any good to put lead in your pockets because lead is now no heavier than feathers used to be. The subways are full because the people think that is the only place where they are safe. I am now prac- tically the only person on earth who is above the surface. I saw a child throw a ball attached to a string into the air. When the ball came to the end of the string the child left the ground and went flying after it. It is getting pretty dark and I'll have to close this page. My keep- er says that if I don't go right to bed, he will put one of those uncomfortable jackets on me. Good night, dear Diary. MACHINE SHOP MONOLOGUE , , By JERRY GREENBERG, A43 AY, SAM, just look at those lathes! We'll have some I bet. And say, look at that big machine over there. I .H-H M wonder if we'll ever get to use thai. Those pulleys up there look complicated! Oh, well, I guess we'll learn all about this stuff sooner or later. Boy, I just can't wait 'til we start working those lathes! . . . How do you like that? Two weeks gone, and the motors haven't even been started yet! I'm sick of writing and draw- ing . . . Hey, fellows, didja hear what the teacher just said? We start work today! il q ' fun when we get started, I P I O Here are the assignments . . . Whoopee! I'm on the engine lathe. just let me at it! I-Im! Pretty complicated apparatus, if you ask me! Let's see. First, I gotta clamp on the lathe dog, then put the stock be- tween the centers . . . Oh, oh. It doesn't go. Hey, Mr. Blenderman, my work's too big for the lathe! Oh, I see. just move the tail stock back. Smart man, that Mr. Blenderman. There! All set up. Now to start the thing. I wonder which lever he said to use. That one doesn't work. This one didn't start it either. Ah, there it goes! That's funny. Nothing happened. 15