Tuxedo Park

by Jennet Conant

  Loomis saw to it that they had “the best of everything on the boat.” The chief steward prepared a fine French dinner for them every night. On the last day, he announced that he had prepared a grand surprise for dinner, something that was very unusual, he promised, “a great luxury!” That night, after the soup and fish courses were cleared, he solemnly rolled a wagon over to the table, bearing a large covered silver dish. It was a meal Wood never forgot: “He rubbed his hands together and smiled at us, and then lifted the cover, displaying in all its stark nakedness a huge shapeless mass of shivering, steaming corned beef, garnished with cabbage and cauliflower and whatever else goes with this, my pet abomination, a New England boiled dinner.”

  Upon their return to Tuxedo Park, Loomis and Boys spent the rest of the summer doing lightning experiments, using a special high-speed camera designed by Boys expressly for photographing rapidly moving objects such as bullets and lightning bolts. Together they succeeded in taking a series of photographs that proved Boys’ theory that the path of the lightning bolt was cleared by an electric “beam” that preceded the bolt. Although they did not have a hand in creating the dark thunderclouds that hung low over Tuxedo’s rolling hills, many of the residents reportedly blamed the atmospheric disturbances on the activities up at Tower House.

  When the Shortt clocks finally arrived, Loomis installed them in a vault excavated from the solid rock of the mountain on which the laboratory stood, mounting them on three massive masonry piers that were, in effect, part of the bedrock. The location was “especially favorable,” according to Loomis, because it was practically free from traffic and electrical disturbances and was carefully temperature controlled. This meant the fourteen-pound pendulums were swinging in a near vacuum and in planes 120 degrees apart. Loomis then went to Bell Laboratories and bought “the best” quartz crystal clocks they made to use for comparison purposes. These one-hundred-thousand-cycle quartz oscillators, invented in 1928, were accurate to one second in thirty years and were built primarily for the U.S. Bureau of Standards. The advantage of the quartz crystal clocks was that they were inherently stable and relatively free from extraneous effects. Because they were not dependent on gravity, they could, without any adjustment, operate at the same rate in any latitude and at any altitude.

  Equipped with the most accurate, reliable—and expensive—clocks then available, Loomis began collecting all sorts of data it had been previously impossible to record. He was able to achieve spectacular results and to publish major findings, in part because quartz crystal clocks were still such a novelty and few scientists at the time had access to the superb assembly at Tower House. Loomis proved that there was no such thing as keeping perfect time, showing that even the five most accurate clocks in the world—the three in his vault and the other two in the Naval Observatory and in Greenwich, England—were subject to numerous errors. All that was possible was to make comparisons between the different clocks.

  Loomis set up such an accurate system of precision clocks and comparative time recording that he was able to register infinitesimal fluctuations in the clock rates due to the fact that the pendulums coupled and influenced one another despite all the precautions taken against disturbances. Describing his test at the winter convention of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in January 1932, Loomis said, “This would seem to show that, massive as the piers have been made, they are not infinite in comparison to the fourteen-pound pendulums, and that strains are set up by each pendulum that are felt in some degree by the others through the piers and solid bedrock.” He found that when he placed the clocks at the corners of an equilateral triangle, facing inward, the coupling was broken. He even found a way to calculate the change in gravity pull if a clock was raised one foot and concluded that the loss as a timekeeper would be one and a half seconds in a year.

  Over the next few years, Loomis and W. A. Marrison, a researcher at Bell Labs, conducted a series of important experiments comparing the performance of Loomis’ free-pendulum clocks and the quartz clocks at Bell Labs in New York, some fifty miles away. Loomis installed a private line that carried the Bell oscillator signals, and he designed an ingenious chronograph to compare the timekeeping abilities of the Shortt pendulum clocks and the quartz oscillator clocks. The comparison was effected through the circuit maintained between the two laboratories, over which a one-thousand-cycle current, controlled by a crystal in New York, was used to drive the Loomis chronograph. Because the pendulum clocks were sensitive to the pull of gravity but electric clocks were not, Loomis used his chronograph to show the moon’s effect on pendulum clocks—something that was known but had never actually been demonstrated before. Boys told the New York American that the Loomis clock had “shown that compared with it the ordinary pendulum clock, of the finest sort, goes wrong daily on account of the gravitational pull of the moon in six hours.”

  The experiment required that he simultaneously record for several weeks on miles of tape the minute variations in the time shown by the gravity clocks in the different locations. As this was long before the advent of computers, to help with the painstaking data analysis of the tapes Loomis hired a battery of women who operated desktop computing machines and ran the numbers. The figures were then studied by Ernest Brown, the eminent Yale astronomer, who confirmed the distortive effect of the moon’s gravitational pull on earthbound gravity clocks. Loomis published the final results later that year in his paper “The Precise Measurement of Time,” in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, followed by a paper with Brown’s findings.

  Brown, in remarks before the winter convention of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, explained that time “is relative in more than the purely Einsteinian sense.” Accurate time could be obtained only by comparing our clocks with a standard clock, but the standard itself was subject to various errors. Some of the sources of error were known and could be adjusted for, but there were many other causes—terrestrial and celestial—that act as “time thieves.” Loomis, Brown reported, had “just lately” caught the moon stealing time from the earth: “For the first time the action of the moon, which is the greatest external effect, was measured by the Loomis chronograph and shown to give accumulated errors which were always less than two ten-thousandths of a second as indicated by theory.”

  Loomis’ work won him memberships in both the Royal and American Astrological Societies. He became so obsessed with precise time, he kept a radio set in the basement laboratory that automatically tuned in to Berlin, Greenwich, Arlington, and the other observatories just in time to catch their time signals, which were then recorded. Loomis would read the record of official time signals, compare it to his own clocks, and, according to one observer, “predict with a chuckle the exact corrections which the various observatories would have to broadcast at the end of the month.” One New York paper ran a brief story that gently spoofed the latest obsession of the “eminent American capitalist whose one passion in life is to conduct and promote subtle scientific researches”:

  What time is it?—you ask.

  It is p.m.—hour 12, minutes 2, second 0.0003.

  Loomis would remain a “time nut” for the rest of his life, according to Luis Alvarez, who recalled that Loomis always wore “two Accutrons—one on his right wrist and one on his left wrist.” He would check them every day against WWV (the standard frequency broadcasting station of the National Bureau of Standards), and if one was gaining a half second on the other, he would wear it on the outside of his wrist instead of the inside, so that gravity changed the rate of the tuning fork and the two watches tracked each other, and WWV, “to within less than a second a day.”

  Loomis’ scientific investigations followed a pattern in which he set out in one direction after another in search of a new discoveries, seemingly only to abandon it. Even to the most casual observer, his feverish efforts, followed by a brief triumph and equally feverish desire to be off again on another tangent, must have appeared somewhat self-indulgent, even fr
ivolous. There was also a constant shuttling of European scientists and experts back and forth across the pond, for he needed playmates. After a while, it seemed that Loomis’ attention was as transient as his guests. Who could have known then that it was fortunate that he would give his imagination such free rein—from his earliest explorations of high-frequency sound waves to his chronograph and experiments with quartz crystal clocks—for it would lead him into his research of the nascent field of radar, which would become critical in the coming war.

  The day after Loomis’ forty-first birthday, Ellen wrote to Henry Stimson that she sincerely doubted her husband, “who is getting all grey over the ears, though it is becoming,” would ever stop playing with his mechanical toys and grow up:

  Not that it makes any difference, he will always be a boy, no matter how brilliant he is, no matter if he lives to be 98, as Stimsons should. Henry [their youngest son] consulted as to when we could celebrate his birthday with appropriate ceremonies of cake, and candles and gifts. Alfred is so surrounded and encompassed with scientists all the time nowadays. Lunch, tea, and dinner yesterday were full of short wave radio men, marine bacteriology men, and chemists, that we held our little private festival at breakfast. . . .

  In another letter to Stimson after Christmas, Ellen’s loneliness was apparent in her touching description of having her boys back at home for the holidays. “ ‘Heaven on Earth!’ is the only way I can describe them!” she wrote. “With riding, skating, and long hours with their father in the laboratory, and much reading aloud with Father, Mother and me, the days were all too short. And now those blessed weeks are all over.” She had renewed her efforts to participate in her husband’s life. Although in the past she had complained of being “a little hazy about almost every subject Alfred talks on, either financially or scientifically,” she now recommended a thick book on astronomy she was reading, “written so that a plain person could more or less understand it.” She confided: “Of course, it interests me as a light on the world of thought Alfred lives in.” Loomis, she wrote, was preoccupied with his research:

  The Tower was full of scientists and Alfred has been keener than ever on the problem of actually “exact” time. He has had all sorts of adventures among his clocks, and learned a lot, and there is plenty left to learn for a lifetime ahead. Also, he is making a new and improved model of his “interferometer” for measuring the resistance of fluids. He has been elected to the council of the American Physical Society—it is a real honour and he is pleased. . . .

  Working in his laboratory alongside accomplished scientists, Loomis excelled as the innovative designer of precision mechanical devices. He did not have the patience to do the involved analyses accomplished by some of the brilliant researchers who came to Tower House and instead made his contribution to these studies, as Kistiakowsky put it, by “building complex apparatus” that advanced the basic knowledge in the field. What followed was a string of inventions of the kind he had loved coming up with since boyhood. Working with John C. Hubbard, a visiting professor from Johns Hopkins, Loomis developed a “sonic interferometer” to analyze the molecular effects of supersonic waves in liquids.

  Another Loomis gadget, and one of which he was especially proud, was “the microscope centrifuge,” developed with E. Newton Harvey, who was a professor of biology at Princeton. The device enabled biologists to witness for the first time what happened to cells when they were subjected to high gravitational forces and led to new discoveries in cell structure. As Loomis and Harvey wrote in the introduction to their first paper on the subject:

  The previous procedure has been to centrifuge the cell in a capillary tube, remove it from the tube and observe it under a microscope to determine what happens. It would obviously be far better to observe the effect of centrifugal force while the force was acting. An instrument for his purpose could be constructed in theory, making use of several different principles. Our communication describes a practical means of attaining this end.

  To create the microscope centrifuge, Loomis and Harvey adapted the principle of the motion picture projector. While the cell was being whirled around at a rate of eight thousand to ten thousand revolutions a minute, their instrument presented a series of images with such regularity and rapidity that it appeared to the observer as a clear and steady picture. In the microscope centrifuge, a disk, similar in size and operation to a turntable, was rotated at high speed by an electric motor. They placed the slide containing the cell or egg to be studied on the disk and focused the microscope on a given point on the slide. Each time the disk completed its revolution, the slide came into the field of vision, and at that precise moment a light lasting one one-millionth of a second flashed. The flash was produced by a small mercury light, the frequency and duration of which were controlled by the discharge of electricity through the mercury vapor. The rest of the revolution occurred in darkness, thus creating the illusion of a continuous picture. Loomis, the magician, was at work again. “So with this new microscope,” concluded The New York Times, “we have a remarkably ingenious application of a familiar principle to a new purpose.”

  Loomis and Harvey produced a series of photographs that showed that when rotating at such a high speed, the cell or egg was subjected to terrific centrifugal pressure, what is now referred to as “g-forces.” As a result, the granules and the internal structure of the cell underwent various distortions, and the egg changed shape and finally broke up. From observations of the tension at the surface of the egg and behavior of its internal parts, it was now possible to ascertain facts about the fundamental characteristics of cells that could not be previously obtained and were of importance in biological research. Until their new microscope, for which they received a patent, scientists had been handicapped by their inability to observe and measure the various steps in the deformation of cells and in the movement of particles within them. Almost immediately after the publication of their first paper, some existing theories about the properties of matter within cells had to be revised. Loomis and Harvey were later awarded the prestigious Wetherill Medal of the Franklin Institute for the microscope centrifuge.

  As was his habit by now, Loomis put his name only on the first of the thirteen microscope centrifuge papers published by his laboratory: this was partly from modesty and partly because he had already moved on to the next project. The Herald Tribune applauded the latest in a series of Loomis inventions: “Further knowledge concerning the fundamental characteristics of cells, such as the eggs of marine life, has been obtained, it was announced here, by a new type of microscope. . . . Mr. Loomis, the banker-scientist and collaborator of Dr. Harvey in the study, has developed an important laboratory at Tuxedo Park, which has been of value in throwing light on several important scientific problems in the last few years.”

  Loomis was devoting every spare moment to his research at Tower House, and the toll it was taking on his energy and attention did not escape Stimson’s notice. In the spring of 1928, after learning that Loomis had succumbed to a bout of influenza and had spent several weeks resting and recuperating in Florida, Stimson, who was then abroad serving as governor general of the Philippines, sent him an admonishing letter:

  My main anxiety with regard to you is the fear that you burn the candle at both ends, and I beg you not to do it. I am glad to hear that everything is going on well with Bonbright, and I hope that it continues to do so. I see there has been, and still is, a big boom in the stock market which, so far as I can see, is not supported by the general condition of business. I trust you are all keeping your watchful eyes upon that situation. . . .

  Stimson’s concern was not solely for Loomis’ welfare. He had long ago entrusted his favorite cousin with managing his finances and feared Loomis’ many distractions might not bode well for his own interests. Bonbright’s long run of good fortune had been Stimson’s as well, making him by his own estimation a rich man and underwriting a lifestyle his years of public service would never have afforded. Part of his purpose in writi
ng Loomis was to ask for his help and advice in courting Wall Street. The Philippines was in desperate need of economic development, and Stimson, a devoted corporate capitalist, believed large quantities of American investment was the answer: “By bringing in public utility companies that offer their services first and depend upon making their own market by the demand which they create, I hope to turn the flank of the deadlock and get the Filipinos to understand the real benefits of modern American capital and methods. . . .”

  Stimson need not have worried about Loomis’ priorities. While his passion was science, he was far too competitive and too committed to his company’s success to allow himself to be distracted for long. He remained deeply involved in Bonbright’s day-to-day transactions, his brilliant analytical skills proving the perfect complement to Thorne’s keen judgment. When the direction of a merger needed leadership and vision, Bonbright was seen as always at the ready, having established a reputation for undertaking swift negotiations and acting with consummate entrepreneurship. In addition, Loomis sat on the board of half a dozen companies, and most of what there was to know about what was happening was his to know. As Loomis reassured Stimson in August 1928:

  Things at the office are going along according to schedule.

  Superpower is in a flourishing condition and its stock is now selling at 44, after the dividend of $20 per share of Preference stock, which amounts to 64 for the old stock.

  The new company that we formed, Allied Power & Light, as a merger . . . has worked out extremely well and both organizations have gotten to like each other more and more, and I think the merger will turn out to be a very constructive step for all of the public utilities under the influence of these two groups. . . .

  He mentioned Tower House only as a cheerful aside: “There are eight or nine scientists staying at the Laboratory and the work there is as interesting as ever.” While Stimson continued to beseech him for news of his work with Thorne at Bonbright, Loomis’ letters are sparse and hurried: “I am just rushing off to a meeting of American Superpower so I won’t have time to say anything more in this letter,” he explained in a brief note on September 5, 1928. “Things are going awfully well with that company and all our plans are moving along just the way we wish.”