In the autumn of 1927 a gathering of the world’s most prominent physicists met at Como, birthplace of Volta, for the celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of his death. Wood went abroad with his wife and Elizabeth.
There were solemn exercises at the tomb of Volta, receptions, boat excursions by day and night, garden parties, and motor trips to Pavia and other places.
On the last night (says Wood), there was a display of fireworks on the lake, which I have never seen equaled anywhere. It ended with a 200-yard barrage of phosphorus and magnesium bombs which exploded with terrific reports and blinding flashes of light, which were particularly effective when the great smoke clouds enveloped the flashes in a heavy veil. It is the only pyrotechnic piece I have ever seen that made cold chills run up and down my spine. It was a dramatization of war, and was terrific.
At the end of the ceremonies, the delegates went down to Rome, where other entertainment was provided, ending with a reception and afternoon tea party given by Mussolini at his Villa Corsini. They all had to be recognized by at least three members of the reception committee before being admitted.
Wood’s second trip abroad with Alfred Loomis was made in 1928. They called first on Sir Oliver Lodge, who presented each of them with an autographed copy of his latest book, Evidence of Immortality. They next visited Sir Charles V. Boys, whom Loomis invited to go back with them in July and spend the summer in Tuxedo. Boys said, “Oh, I haven’t been to America for twenty years, and I should like to see it now with all the changes, but I’m pretty feeble, and I tremble at the thought of such a journey. It is frightening!” His son, however, urged him to accept, and Alfred said, “All you have to do is to be in Plymouth on July 4, and I’ll arrange everything else”.
One of the things Loomis hoped to obtain in England was an astronomical “Shortt clock”, a new instrument for improving accuracy in measurement of time. It had a “free pendulum” swinging in a vacuum in an enormous glass cylinder — and was so expensive that only five of the big, endowed observatories yet possessed one. Says Wood:
I took Loomis to Mr. Hoke-Jones, who made the clocks. His workshop was reached by climbing a dusty staircase, and there was little or no machinery in sight, but one of the wonderful clocks was standing in the corner, almost completed, which made the total production to date six. Mr. Loomis asked casually what the price of the clock was, and on being told that it was two hundred and forty pounds (about $1,200), said casually, “That’s very nice. I’ll take three”. Mr. Jones leaned forward, as if he had not heard, and said, “I beg your pardon?” “I am ordering three”, replied Mr. Loomis. “When can you have them finished? I’ll write you a check in payment for the first clock now”.
Mr. Jones, who up to then had the expression of one who thinks he is conversing with a maniac, became apologetic. “Oh, no”, he said, “I couldn’t think of having you do that, sir. Later on, when we make the delivery, will be quite time enough”. But Loomis handed him the check nevertheless.
During the ensuing weeks they motored about England, visited the continent, and returned, showed motion pictures of the supersonic experiments before the Royal Society, went to the Derby, lunched and dined with celebrities — and then took a flying trip to Copenhagen, where they saw Niels Bohr, and then went on to Germany.
Again, at Berlin University, they showed motion pictures of their supersonic experiments, met Pringsheim, von Laue, Planck, Nernst, and most of the other famous scientists then alive in Germany. They visited the Zeiss works at Jena and the University of Gottingen, where they were invited to see a student duel. Wood was all for seeing it, but dueling was, of course, against the law, and Loomis was unwilling.
We hadn’t heard from Boys meanwhile (says Wood), and it was time to be getting aboard the Paris. Loomis had sent Boys his steamer ticket, but we had no means of knowing whether or not his courage would hold out. As the liner slowed down at Plymouth to take on the English passengers, we looked anxiously down on the little tender, and there he was waving his hand joyfully and all ready to scramble up the gangplank, looking as relieved at finding us really on the steamer as were we at seeing him on the tender.
We had the best of everything on the boat, and the Chief Steward had a special surprise for us every night at dinner, marvels of French cooking. On the last day he announced at lunch that he had a grand surprise, something very unusual, a great luxury! “Epatant! Only wait and see”. Sure enough, after the soup and fish a wagon was solemnly rolled up to our table, bearing a great silver dish covered with an oval silver dome. The Chief Steward was in attendance. 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.
Back in America, they learned that Professor James Franck, Nobel prize winner, was coming over in January to give lectures at various universities. Wood suggested to Loomis that he hold a congress of physicists in his Tuxedo Park laboratory in Franck’s honor. Franck accepted and the meeting was held in the library, a room of cathedral-like proportions, with stained- glass windows. Franck gave his first lecture in America there. Wood, Loomis, and others made subsequent addresses. The visiting American physicists were conducted through the laboratory and shown the supersonic and other experiments. The congress in this palace of science proved such a success that it was repeated the following year.
Chapter Sixteen.
How Wood Solved the Mystery of King Tutankhamen’s Purple Gold — with the Aid of His Wife’s Nail Polish
In the weird Wood guest book at East Hampton is a drawing made by Ambrose Lansing, curator of Egyptology at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. It is only slightly Egyptian. It is a burlesque of Wood’s own Animal Analogues, and is entitled “The Wood and the Woodchuck”. It depicts the woodchuck stealing lettuce from a cold frame not unlike a museum case, and the Wood similarly engaged in purloining the famous purple-gold sequins of King Tutankhamen from their case in the Cairo Museum.
“A joke’s a joke”, said Dr. Wood, “but after all we didn’t steal the purple sequins. You might say we abstracted them with the connivance of the Curator. You might even say, if it gives you more fun to put me always in the worst possible light, that we surreptitiously abstracted them, but — ”