Bristol news. [volume] (Bristol, Va. & Tenn.) 1867-189?, 1870-07-08

rays; consequently all objects, howevo
distant, appear TO us of their natura
size, and their distinctness, where M
atmosphere interyenes, unaffected b,
their distance. OF course we coulC
see no objects larger than our owl
bodies, had we not the faculty of mov
ing our bodies as instinctively as yot
move the eye IN surveying an object
and with inconceivable velocity. Thu.
We can survey landscape i'm the re-
hottest star, far moro accurately anC
| closely than you could wore you OBJ
serving il from balloon at q moderate
| height.
There IL one thing more that | wish
| TO explain to you before bid you fare.
well. If you were to start from the
earth at the moment of flash of light
ming, and could travel with the exact
velocity of light, you would behold
! that flash as long a. you continued
your journey. But suppose you jour
neyed with tittte Tess velocity, what
would then be the result? L will sup
pose that your journey from the earth
continues an hour, that is TO say, 5000
seconds, and that the lightning lasts
one tenth of a second. You will con-
tinue to see the lightning for $4,000
times its real duration. L am now
surprising that you travel as fast as
light, in which case you will occupy
the same time in reaching the slme
point in space-its journey aud yours
will have coincided throughout. Now
If instead of journeying with the pre-
else velocity OF light, your movement
has been little slower,-say your en-
tire journey has occupied one-tenth of
u second morc,-instead of seeing al
ways the same moment of the flash,
you will have seen successfully all tic
moments constituting its entire dura-
ton. But instead of enduring only
the tenth of a second, as for an observ-
er on earth, it has been protracted for
you to 36,00l tcnths of second, or
more than an hour. Conceive, if you
can, what observations could be made
in such an experience rs that.
If you travel with precisely the We
locity of light, you have always before
your eyes the picture which existed ut
you continue the journey for n year,
you would always have precisely the
same sight presented to your view
But il, to better observe phenomenon
which only lasts few moments, for
instance the fall of mountain, an
avalanche, a shock of an earthquake,
you should start at the commencement
of the phenomenon, and regulate your
velocity so as gradually to see moment
after moment of its process, you might
place, If you chose, year of steady
observation between your sight of its
commencement and of its termination.
For you the phenomenon would then
have lasted year instead of n minute,
and you would have had leisure to
study every instant of its progress.
i see that you are comparing this
proceeding to that OF II microscope,
and the analogy is apt. The micro
scope enlarges space, or rather objects
existing in space: this process ampli-
flies time, or rather events succeeding
in time.
My sole object in this conversation
has been to open your mind to some
few of the results that flow from the
indestructibility of force. BY the sue
cessive transmission of luminous vi
brations through space every event is
imperishable, and the past always
present. The image of the Earth as
IL was 600 years ago actually exists in
space at the distance which it takes
light that length of time to travel |;
and the worlds situated in that region
see the earth at that epoch. No event
has happened in the Universe but the
picture of 1t exists in light, and could
be seen by being placed at the proper
locality in space and 10 beings gifted
with indefinitely greater velocity of
motion, all the past may become pres
ent, ami the entire history of the Uni
verse uLroll itself before their eyes.
Your science has made recently
many great advances in discovery, but
they are but single grains of sand to
the sea-shore. The study of light alone
will yet yield you results more sublime
and more amazing than anything that
has hitherto entered your minds to
conceive.
CAMILLE FLAMMARION.