On supporting science journalism
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MAY 1957
MACHINE BRAWN--"The word 'automation,' a journalistic coinage, has undeservedly become 'a source of fear,' according to the Earl of Halsbury, an English authority on industrial technology. In the British journal Impact he attempts to correct the impression created by journalists that automatic processes in industry 'will cause widespread unemployment.' Machines require trained men to maintain them. Displacements occur mainly in the ranks of the unskilled, who have a high rate of turnover anyway. Lord Halsbury is concerned for the man who is not going to be affected by automation--the coal miner, the stevedore and others 'who do the heavy laboring work for a society which does not know how to lighten their task.'"
MAY 1907
TURN FOR THE WORSE--"The Scientific American recently discussed the gyroscopic action of steam turbines in increasing the stresses in the frail hull structure of torpedo boats. An English naval architect proved that in the case of the British torpedo boat whose back was broken when she was plunging heavily into a head sea, the gyroscopic resistance to a change of plane of the revolving parts of the turbine may have amounted to several tons, and that these stresses, being unrecognized at the time the boat was designed, may have carried the total bending and wrenching stress beyond the limit of strength of the hull."
