[TheForge] now The Amateur Scientist -- from Scientific American

[David E. Smucker]

Steve,
 It was in deed a great series and almost always the first part of 
Scientific American I would turn to growing up.  My senior year high school 
science project was featured in the Sept. 1965 issue.  It had nothing to do 
with Blacksmithing.
I had designed a built a high altitude chamber using a 30 gallon drum to 
study the effect of high altitude on white rats.  Man that was a long time 
ago.  I still have copies in some box somewhere.  If you have the CDROM 
check and let me know if it is in it.

Dave Smucker

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Smith" <sos at alum.mit.edu>
To: "Sponsored by ABANA" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Thursday, April 14, 2005 7:40 PM
Subject: Re: [TheForge] was cutting 1/4 copper now welders


> Kevin, Grover, whoever else has plenty of time:
>
> Scientific American magazine used to run a column "The Amateur Scientist", 
> which was an amazing experimentalist's column. You name it, they did it, 
> mostly from scratch. Lasers, rockets (no manufactured engines...), 
> telescopes starting with a porthole, plasma torches, atom smashers, ruling 
> engines for making diffraction gratings. Wonderful stuff that strongly 
> influenced me growing up.
>
> Did I say plasma torches? Yep. In the early 60's they had a column on 
> such. As I recall, the torch was water cooled and was bench mounted 
> pointing up. It "vaporized most metals instantly, including tungsten. 
> Ceramics took a little while...". I think it would be really tough to 
> adapt to a cutting torch (and it would probably have a huge kerf).
>
> If you want to dig into "The Amateur Scientist", all of it from the 1920's 
> thru the end of the century, it is available on CDROM:
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0970347626/qid=1113521388/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-2539502-2820810
> Watch out if the URL gets wrapped, you may have to cut and paste a second 
> time. Really fine stuff if you're into building and experimenting with 
> just about anything.
>
> Steve
>
SNIP