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as it had been on the day on which it was made. It was a glowing sphere of iridescent colours without the slightest trace of blackness, which is the prelude to disintegration. Its longevity was due to the fact that it was blown in and filled with clean air which was completely free from the motes and small particles which, with soap bubbles, are the seed of decay. Unfortunately it came to an untimely end about ten days later due to the vibration occasioned when the equipment for producing liquid air for Sir J. J. Thomson’s Saturday afternoon lecture was being set up. Other bubbles of Sir James’s creation withstood the vibration, one of them being completely black and showing no colour at all. Four days later being blown with hydrogen it lost all colour. It was five-and-a-quarter inches in diameter and the thickness – or thinness – of its skin was about a ten-millionth of an inch. Yet it was strong enough to support a drop of soap solution hanging from its lowest point. Another bubble blown with air and three-and-a-half inches in diameter took longer than the one blown with hydrogen to become black. In his experiments with soap bubbles, and they were many, Sir James was not just engaging in self-amusement or trying, for the fun of it, to see what would happen under various conditions. There was a serious side to his experimentation. From his observations he noticed that in a sealed exhausted tube the upper portion became black leaving a lower coloured section with a sharply defined horizontal edge. When he tilted the tube the coloured section responded at once. The film then could be used as a level and it was his hope that an instrument could be devised along these lines to enable air pilots to keep their ‘planes on an even keel. Though it did not work out as he had hoped the possibilities were there where such a level, responding instantaneously and free from unsteadiness could be invented and become a valuable instrument at the disposal of air pilots.
After Sir James had concluded his Friday evening lecture on 21st June 1921 the Duke of Newcastle, who was in the Chair, spoke of the pleasing duty he had now to perform in view of the approaching Golden Wedding of Sir James and Lady Dewar. “Sir James’s name,” said the Duke, “was not only a household name with all of us but it is no great exaggeration to say that every one of us utilises in some way or other the results of the great discoveries which he has made during the last forty or fifty years.” Speaking of Sir James’s early investigations in the physiology of the eye and the long series of spectroscopic researches which he had carried out with Professor Living at Cambridge, which had made both their names famous, and of his collaboration with Sir Frederick Abel in the invention of cordite which the army and navy have used ever since, he said it was to that that “our victory in the war was largely due”. Referring to Sir James’s immense contribution to the liquefaction of the gases the Duke reminded his audience that liquid air was “now a commercial article, and to prove its value we have only to look at the attempt which is now being made to ascend Mount Everest, an attempt which would have been absolutely impossible if it were not for that invention. If that attempt succeeds it will be due not only to the skill, experience and intrepidity of the explorers but to the inventive genius of Sir James Dewar. In the last forty-four years Sir James has delivered more than fifty Friday evening lectures, more than thirty-six sets of lectures covering the whole range of chemistry and chemico-physics – nine sets of Christmas lectures to juveniles, firmly establishing in the minds of the rising generation a foundation of scientific study.” Expressing his thanks to Lady Dewar for the support she had given to Sir James, without which his achievements would not have been possible, the Duke mentioned particularly the hospitality which she dispensed to those who attended the Friday evening discourses. On behalf of the members of The Royal Institution the Duke then presented Sir James and Lady Dewar with a beautiful Golden Loving Cup. On rising to reply Sir James was received with rousing cheers. Having thanked the members of The Royal Institution for their beautiful and generous gift and having acknowledged gratefully his indebtedness to his wife for “All she had been and done through their harmonious life of togetherness for fifty years”, he mentioned his love of music “and the early vanity which impelled me to make my own music, which was a little insane”. He had available the fiddle he made and signed in 1854, “my first authentic signature”, and which would be played that evening by two young ladies. Reminiscing on his years at The Royal Institution he felt that he had been overburdened with honours. “My work has been an absolute pleasure and delight to me. It has never engendered in me a though of anticipating any reward. The crown of science is the joy of its cultivation, as Shakespeare has it, from whom, through the... NEXT PAGE
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