Million Dollar Physics Building Looms For Jefferson Inadequacy

The General Education Board of the Rockefeller Foundation has offered Harvard University $400,000 to be used in the construction of a new million-dollar physical laboratory, provided that the University raise the other $600,000, it was announced yesterday by Theodore Lyman '97, Director of the Jefferson Physical Laboratory and Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. According to the proposed plans, the building will cost $500,000 and $100,000 will be spent on equipment. The remaining $400,000 will be devoted to an endowment for the laboratory.

First Press Announcement Yesterday

Although tentative plans for the new building have been going on for some time, no official announcement of it has been made to the press before.

Professor Lyman, when interviewed yesterday by a CRIMSON reporter refused to make any definite statement as to the amount of money already raised, saying only, "We are making some progress. I am quite encouraged."

The new laboratory will be situated between the Cruft Laboratory and the Jefferson Laboratory, and will be connected to both these buildings.

New Building Devoted to Research

The proposed building will be devoted entirely to research. Into it will be moved a large part of the advanced work now being carried on in Jefferson and Cruft. The space made available in the Jefferson Laboratory will be refitted to form modern teaching equipment for undergraduates.

At present, Jefferson and Cruft laboratories are the only buildings at Harvard devoted to Physics. Jefferson, the main building, was built more than 40 years ago, while Cruft which is devoted principally to the instruction of graduate students and research work by students and teachers, was built in 1914.

Jefferson and Cruft Both Overtaxed

Both buildings are filled to their utmost capacity and are lacking in necessary equipment. With one exception, Harvard is the only first class university in the United States that is so poorly equipped for the study and teaching of physics.

The Department of Physics is conducting at the present time several researches of great importance. Professor William Duane '93 is studying X-rays and radio-active substances, with special reference to their treatment of malignant disease. Professor P. W. Bridgman '04 is carrying on an investigation of compressibilities and thermal conductivities which are of considerable use to the geologist Professor F. I. Chaffee 11 has been measuring for several years the electrical response of the retina to light stimulation, a subject which has an important relation to our knowledge of the mechanism of visitor.

Notable Current Researches

Other researches in progress deal with the problem of the safe landing of airplanes in thick weather an electric-wave technique which is new being used in an attack on the problem of cancer and the commercial application of electric oscillations as a means of standardizing the thickness of paper and rubber during their manufacture.