Measures for Progress: A History of the National Bureau of Standards

478 THE NEW WORLD OF SCIENCE (1946-51)
properties of these systems little older. The science deals with the chainlike
molecules of relatively very high molecular weight that make up substances
as different as rubber, textiles, paper, leather, and plastics, all of which owe
their strength, elasticity, durability and plasticity to the long chainlike struc-
ture of their molecules. Dr. Simha's lecture-seminars led the Bureau to invite
him to join the staff, and he remained for 2 years organizing high polymer
research at the Bureau.135
The growth of the synthetic rubber and plastics industries in this
country during the war raised the problem of new standards based on accu-
rate determination of the structures and properties of polymer substances.
Awareness of the problem was accentuated by the discovery of German ad-
vances made in plastics and textiles, learned from the search of their labora.
tories in the last months of the war in Europe.'36 Particularly pressing was
the need for more basic research in the rubber industry, both in natural
rubber, flowing freely once again, and in synthetic rubber, as insurance "in
the event of any future emergency." 137
Apart from the Bureau program, rubber research in industry and in
the universities on behalf of the Federal Government was then running over
R. Sirnha, "Preliminary Proposal for a Plan of Research on Molecular Properties of
High Polymers," Aug. 1, 1945 (NBS Historical File); Science, 104, 572 (1946).
important in the history of the Bureau have been the guest lecturers from industry and
the universities who have become temporary consultants or staff members in order to
initiate new lines of research or even whole new programs at the Bureau. In many
instances they have subsequently sent their graduate students or laboratory assistants
to join the Bureau staff.
The guest lecturer policy was introduced by Dr. Stratton, who even after leaving the
Bureau continued to invite leading scientists, among them Niels Bohr, to lecture there.
In 1923 Prof. Arnold Sommerfeld of the institute of Theoretical Physics in Munich,
early pioneer in the quantum theory and quantum interpretation of spectra, spent 2
weeks at the Bureau as consultant and lecturer. The practice continued in the 1930's
when, among others, Wojciech Swietoslawski and his pupil Mieczyslaw Wojciechowski
of the Polytechnic Institute of Warsaw brought the technique of ebulliometry to the
Bureau (ch. VI, see p. 343), and Prof. John D. Ferry of the University of Wisconsin came
to lecture on rheology, the science of the flow and deformation of materials.
Dr. Herman F. Mark, who fled Nazi Germany and started polymer science in this country,
came as a consultant to the Bureau in 1941—42. Another lecturer on high polymers,
Dr. Paul J. Flory of Stanford University, later sent his prize student, Dr. Leo Mandelkern,
who did some of the first work in this country on the crystallization of polymers. Simi.
larly, Dr. Herbert P. Broida came to the Bureau in 1949 to work in flame spectroscopy,
and stayed to direct a research program on free radicals. The policy continues to the
present day. Interviews with Dr. Lawrence A. Wood, June 30, 1964; Dr. Meggers, July 7,
1964; and Dr. Samuel G. Weissberg, Sept. 8, 1964. On the free radicals program, see
NBS AdminBul 56—66, Oct. 29, 1956.
116 NBS Annual Report 1946, pp. 190—192.
NBS Annual Report 1947, p. xv; LC871, "Bibliography of recent research in the
field of high polymers" (Simha, 1947) ; LC922, ibid., 1948; C498, ibid., 1950.