Abstract
THE Physics Forum of the November issue of the Review of Scientific Instruments is devoted to an account of the use made of physics in the detection of crime in the United States. It is written by J. Edgar Hoover, of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Justice. Although the author refers to the use of radio in rapidly communicating information, the account is mainly con-cerned with optical methods: the microscope for the identification of hair, shreds of clothing or other small particles, for the examination of minute markings on bullets so as to identify the weapon used, or the markings on a cut window bar to identify the bolt cutter used, and, with the addition of polarizing prisms, the identification of soil stains on shoes or clothing. The spectroscope is used for identification of stains of all kinds, ultra-violet light for the identification of materials by their fluorescence, for the detection of erasures in documents or for reading documents written in secret ink invisible in ordinary light. X-rays are used for the examination of suspected parcels without opening them, and infra-red light for reading obliterated writing or printing on paper and other materials.
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Physics in Crime Detection. Nature 142, 1154–1155 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/1421154e0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1421154e0