Electrical Precipitation: a Lecture delivered before the Institute of Physics

Abstract

CHEMISTRY has been defined as “the dirty past of physics.” The electrical precipitation of dust from industrial gases, for example from producer gas, blast furnace gas and various gaseous products of chemical industry, is a dirty business. This may in part account for the fact that the subject is, so far as current English scientific literature is concerned, treated only in works on chemistry. The literature of physics is practically silent about the subject. No reference to it is found even in Glazebrook's “Dictionary of Applied Physics,”and this even though the process is decidedly both applied and physical in character. This deficiency is now rectified by the appearance in book form of Sir Oliver Lodge's lecture on electrical precipitation delivered before the Institute of Physics, in which the subjects of natural and artificial precipitation of moisture, dust, etc., are discussed in a manner of which Sir Oliver almost alone would appear to possess the secret. His recent plea for a simplification of the language in which science seeks to deliver its message is here followed up by a glowing example of the manner in which this may be achieved.

Electrical Precipitation: a Lecture delivered before the Institute of Physics.

By Sir Oliver Lodge. (Physics in Industry, Vol. 3.) Pp. 40 + 5 plates. (London: Oxford University Press, 1925.) 2s. 6d. net.