In the new Physics Research Laboratory which had its formal opening at the meeting of the American Physical Society, held in Cambridge during the last week of February, Harvard has acquired much more than a new laboratory.

The significance of the new construction is that the facilities for the study of physics at Harvard have been transformed through the generosity of a considerable number of alumni and the help of the General Education Board of the Rockefeller Foundation. Instead of merely adding a new building to its two existing laboratories, Harvard has turned the three into a single large, modern unit, well equipped for work in practically all branches of the subject, and for all grades of instruction, from elementary courses to the most advanced research.

The new building joins the Jefferson Physical Laboratory, built in 1884, to the Cruft High Tension Electrical Laboratory, completed in 1914. By locating the new construction at this point the Department has been able to revise and consolidate the electrical installations in the older buildings, to give a new value to its machine shops through centralizing them, and to devote the entire new laboratory to research.

Space Economized

By using the power rooms of the Jefferson and Cruft buildings for the installation of new generating apparatus supplemental to extensive existing equipment, space was economized, and all sources of mechanical disturbance were kept at a distance from the new research quarters. The 100,000 volt storage battery, one of the most powerful high voltage batteries in this country, has been moved to the basement of the research laboratory. Undergraduate instruction is to be carried on in the Jefferson Laboratory.

In the Cruft Laboratory, teaching and research will continue in the field of high-frequency phenomena, communication engineering, and certain parts of the subject of acoustics. The building is surmounted by two steel radio towers.

One Machine Shop for Bridgman

The Jefferson Laboratory has been altered in a number of particulars. In the east end of the building and in the central portion on the north side, concrete construction was substituted for wood. Three machine shops are now located in the building, directly accessible to the new Research Laboratory. One is devoted exclusively to the use of Professor Bridgman, for his work on high pressures; one is for general work, and one is a precision shop. The Department of Physics has acquired, through the generous gift of Mrs. Gannett, the very valuable collection of lathes and machines tools, once the property of the late Dr. W. W. Gannett, Harvard '74.

The engineers of an electric system for a building such as the new Physics Laboratory have a more diversified problem than in any other type of electrical installation. A power plant may require higher power, a telephone plant may require more wires, but the installation in a physics laboratory must be more flexible than either. The Harvard Laboratories unit is an excellent example of how the difficulties of the wiring situation has been successfully overcome.

Pioneer Experiments Since 1884

The character of the work which the building is designed to permit is probably best conveyed by a description of the work already going on there. The Harvard laboratories have since the completition of the Jefferson building in 1884 been the scene of a series of the most outstanding pioneer experiments, and in certain fields the position of the University is still unchallenged. The work of Professor Sabine, which laid the foundation for all of modern architectural acoustics, was carried on in a room in the basement of Jefferson Laboratory still used for this purpose.

Researches in general physics furnished the material for the work going forward in the Jefferson Laboratory in the past. Radiations which are the vehicle of "wireless" or "radio" communication--of greater wave-length than those of the visible spectrum--have been the especial interest of the members of the Harvard physics staff in the Cruft Laboratory.

Professor Percy W. Bridgman, whose laboratory has been moved to the new Research Building, occupies in various respects a unique position. He is acknowledged to be the leading authority in the world on the laboratory applications of high pressure and the behavior of solid and liquid materials under such pressure. He has attained the highest pressures on record in laboratory experimentation. An extremely prolific experimental investigator, he is at the same time a profound writer on the philosophical aspects of physics.

Crystal Controlled Oscillator

A laboratory so much devoted to the study of electric circuits as is the new Research Laboratory requires a highly accurate central equipment for checking frequencies. A crystal-controlled master oscillator of 50,000 cycles, with submultiple and harmonic frequency multipliers giving frequencies of 1000 cycles, and any multiple thereof up to more than 20 million cycles is part of the equipment of the building. It has an accuracy and constancy at all frequencies better than one part in five million.