No. 4073 November 22, 1947 NATURE 723 of the ubiquitous pilferer. In a metre bridge set-up, German Physical Society in the British for example, most of the components have sub• stantial 'black-market' value, and unless precautions Zone are taken to safeguard the apparatus there is a high Autumn Conference probability that it will be found one morning in a somewhat despoiled state. Experience has similarly N autumn conference of the German Physical shown the extreme undesirability of leaving electric A Society in the British Zone was held during lamps in accessible positions. September 5-7 in the University of G5ttingen. This Considerable progress has been made in building conference gave striking evidence of German recup• up the library again, but little can be done to improve erative powers under considerable material diffi. the text-book situation. In the Western Zones of culties, for it was attended by some five hundred Germany there is no paper available for the printing physicists, and a formidable total of fifty-eight of scientific books, although the position of journals original papers was read. The conference was de• is slightly better. The Zeitschrift fur Physik, for clared open by the president, Max v. Laue, and at example, has just reappeared under the editorship of this opening session the assembled members and von Laue. A few copies of British and American visitors were greeted by Dr. R. Fraser on behalf of scientific periodicals have found their way into the the Research Branch of the C.C.G. Although library, but the impossibility of payment prevents technically a British Zonal conference, in effect it a regular influx of foreign literature. was to some extent a meeting of the Physical Society Similar conditions are encountered at the Heinrich for the whole of Germany, sinoo delegates were also Hertz Institut fiir Schwingungsforschung, which is present from the French, Russian and American associated with the Technical University by virtue of Zones. The younger generation was strongly repre• the fact that its director, Prof. G. Leithauser, is a sented and actively contributed, a fact calling forth member of the staff, and of the senate, of the Univer• the approval of many of the older German physicists. sity. This Institute is concerned with the training of There is no doubt that organised physics in Germany engineers in radio communications and allied fields, has now recovered from the stagnant aftermath and possesses facilities for a small amount of research. which followed defeat, and active research is being All work is, of course, subject to the usual Military prosecuted from many centres. Government scrutiny, and no micro-wave equipment Considerable satisfaction was expressed by many is allowed. Suitable apparatus for teaching purposes Germans present at the fact that a number of invited is in very short supply and the number of available guests had arrived from abroad to read papers. These experiments is thus severely limited ; one class of were: A. Michels (Amsterdam), V. L. Jordan (Copen• twenty-four students is obliged to work in groups of hagen), B. Pippard, E. H. Sondheimer, D. Shoenberg six as there is sufficient apparatus for only four (Cambridge), S. Tolansky (London), J. G. Wilson experiments. The main lines of research are: defects (Manchester), and all were rE,ceived with warmth and of mirror systems, the design of large horn loud• given a particularly attentive hearing. The number speakers for low-frequency reproduction and various of papers read was sufficiently large to enable the radio circuit problems. A pulsed transmitter (wave• emerging pattern of interests in the post-war physics length range 30-100 metres) is being designed for of Germany to be appreciated. Nuclear physics (in ionospheric investigations. the wide sense) accounted for fifteen contributions So far as research in physics is concerned, facilities divided into cosmic rays (5), nuclear reactions (5) and at the Technical University are practically non• isotopes (5). There were nine papers on optics and existent, and of the three professors, C. Ramsauer, spectroscopy, nine on metallic conduction and magnet• H. Kallmann and R. Frerichs, the two latter are ism, and nine on acoustics. The remaining sixteen supervising small groups working at the Kaiser papers ranged widely, from quantum mechanics to Wilhelm Institut in Dahlem. This is situated in the diffusion pumps. American sector and therefore all projects are sub• It will be gathered from this distribution that the mitted to the American authorities for approval. pattern of interests is little different from what might Prof. Kallmann, in addition to theoretical work in have been expected from any German conference of wave mechanics, is working on the detection of pre-war days, and indeed the traditional emphasis

© 1947 Nature Publishing Group 724 NATURE November 22, 1947 Vol. 160 cosmic ray research, and was a valuable and compre• second kind. Prof. H. Miinzner (Gottingen) introducer! hensive contribution. The second general review wa8 and solved an integra-difference equation which by K. Wirtz. The author was a member of a research arises in the description of a. 'cascade'-process where t eam engaged on the German uranium project, and a particle multiplies k-fold, with probabilities depen• in his paper he surveyed the limited achievements of dent on k, at times t, the "intensity of multiplication" the Germans in this direction. The third general being dependent on t. Finally, Dr. E. Sperner paper was delivered by E. Meyer, who surveyed recent (Oberwolfach) gave an account of his method of developments in acoustics in a comprehensive manner. expanding meteorological functions in terms of In addition to the formal papers read, some eigenfunctions for the purpose of extrapolation. specially arranged were held, the visitors An animated discussion took place in the afternoon from Britain taking part respectively in those on at the Geophysical Institute, where the participants metallic conduction and interferometry. The social met by courtesy of the director, Prof. J. Bartels, programme was indifferent, which was inevitable in whose notion of "pernistence tendency" applied to view of the difficult conditions in Germany to-day. time series (see J. Amer. Stat. Assoc., June, 1940) In view of these quite serious difficulties, the con• gave rise to talks on a great variety of subjects, ference must undoubtedly be considered as quite an ranging from weather forecasts to the Heligoland administrative achievement and augurs well for the explosion (see Nature, September 13, p. 350), seismic future of physical research in Germany, despite the graphs of which were exhibited. very serious shortage in the current materials of Many representatives of German statistics were, of research. S. TOLANSKY course, unable to attend the meeting, but there was much interest in its proceedings. It was felt by all that the comparison of results obtained in ignorance of similar work done in other countries may prove Stati-stical Methods stimulating, though at present Germany has scarcely anything to show which could compare with the HE first meeting of mathematical statisticians fundamental progress achieved in Great Britain and T ever held in Germany took place on September the United States in the last twenty-five years or so. 3-4, 1947, in Gottingen. It was attended by British To facilitate the exchange of ideas it was decided to statisticians who had been invited in an endeavour start work on an English-German dictionary of to overcome the difficulties which German mathema• statistical terms, and to supplement it with proposals ticians have experienced by having been cut off from for a universal notation. Suggestions will be welcomed foreign literature for a long time. The losses suffered by Prof. H. Miinzner (University of Gottingen, by libraries in Germany and the impossibility of Germany, British Zone), or by the British visitors to replacing their stocks contribute to the desire of the meeting. S. VAJDA German scientific workers to resume personal rela• tions with British (or other) contemporaries. The first meeting was opened by Dr. H. Miinzner, professor of theoretical in the University Petroleum Geology ofGottingen. Prof. P. Riebesell (Hamburg) then gave OR the first time in the course of fifteen years, a a critical account ofthe methods of Grosszahljorschung, F meeting of those interested in oil geology was showing that this version of the statistical analysis held in Hanover during September 9-11, about of mass production is either trivial or false. He five hundred geologists and geophysicists being discussed the relation of the normal curve to empirical present. The State Secretaries of the administrative distributions and suggested a test of the significance province, representatives of the Military Govern• of two or more observational modes based on the ment, and numerous foreign guests were welcomed idea of confidence limits (Mutungsbereich). S. Vajda by Prof. Bentz, director of the Oil Department of (London) gave a talk on "The Algebraic Basis of the the Reichsamt fiir Bodenforschung. Analysis of Variance Method" in which he derived During the last fifteen years, several thousand well-known formula- for the tests of effects and wells have been drilled in north-western Germany, interactions of any order by the use of orthogonal which have considerably increased the theoretical polynomials, and pointed out how various possible and practical information about the deep subsurface. but different definitions of effects were due to The main part of the meeting consisted of reports different algebraic constructions (see Nature July 5, from twenty-six German oil-field<>. Their exploration p. 27.) by means of the most up-to-date methods has not In the afternoon, Miss M. P. Geppert (Kerckhoff only increased the production of the oil industry Institute, Bad Nauheim) proved by examples that in considerably but also provided much geological and estimating a parameter from a sample none of the geophysical material, which has helped to clarify the three central measures, mode, mean, or median, of the complicated tectonic, stratigraphic and facial con• fiducial distribution needs coincide with the maximum ditions of the north-west German Saxonicum. Of likelihood estimate. Prof. 0. N . Anderson (late of the numerous Mesozoic rocks with oil-bearing pos• Sofia, now at the University of Munich) gave an sibilities from which the production of the north-west account of the problems of inverse probability and German oil-fields is derived, preference is still given fiducial limits, stressing the necessity for deriving to the Zechstein as the source rock of the oil ; this formula- pertinent to a model "without replacement" ; hypothesis, however, was by no means placed in he also discussed a formula which should take the the foreground as the only one. The German oil place of the t-distribution in tho case of relative industry owes its successes to this positive scientific frequencies (which are not normally distributed) for attitude. It is only necessary to mention here the small n and p =I= (1 - p). importance of the Ems district for German economic On September 4, H. L. Seal (London) spoke on life. With regard to its reserves, this district is non-parametric tests and discussed some of them among the most important German oil provinces from the point of view of errors of the first and and is thus also an important political factor.

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