Morning journal and courier., 1882-08-17
Heat From Hammering.


 Theory assumes that the sun is g stupsndous anvil in the course of being perpetualiy ham mered upon by falling meteors, and that it's heat energy is maintained by this hammering as lump of iron is kept red hot by the wig orsus blows of blacksmith. Sir William Thomson undertook to calculate how much heat might be furnished to the sun by this process if the planets, instead of metsors, fell into it, and he came to the conclusion that by such instrumentality the sun might be sustained in it's present state for nearly 4G,OOO years. The plausible point about this theory is that scientific investigation has proved that if a moving body is stopped, a degree of heat is generated where the resist ance comes into play which is in proportion to the mass of the moving body and to the square of it's velocity of movement. A body weighing a trife more than 16 hundred weight, and moving at the rate of little more than 39 inches in the second, if stop ped, would generate enough heat to raise 9 pounds of water at freezing temperature 1o of centigrade, or 1.8' Fahrenheit If it were moving with the speed of a cannon ball that is, 546 yards per second-it would generate 250, 900 times as much heat, or enough to raise mass of water equal to it. self nearly 3OO0 of centigrade. If it were moving with the velocity with which plan ct would fall into the sun, it would generate nearly 2,000, GOO times as much heat, or enough to bring a mass many thousand times
 
 far exceeding that which could be produced by any combustion. A mass of matter equal to about the hundreth part of the earth, fall ingevery year from the earth's distance, would in this way suffice to maintain the sun's heat radiation permanently. The chief strength of this conception, it will be observed, is the use which it makes of the fact of the contin- uous increase of velocity, in the square of the augmentation of speed. It's obvious weakness, on the other hand, is the extreme improbability that any such quantity of mat ter can be thus thrown meteorically into the sun. If meteoric material was so abundant in space the earth's share, instead of fur nishing it with an occasional pyrotechnical display, ought to batter it's mass in & year into thetemperature something like that of boil ing water. Such mass added to the sun would serve to accelerate the movement of the planets and to shorten their periods of revolution in consequence of the solar at { traction. If, again, there were any meteoric gatherings near the sun, capable of yielding ! such copious contributions, these would of necessity produce very manifest disturbances \ in the movement of the planet Mercury But nothing of this kind has been detected. In consequence of these considerations the con- ! clusion almost unanimously adopted by as- ! tronomers is to the effect that although some \ accession to the suns heat may possibly be ! derived from the impact of meteors falling ! into it's substance, it is very improbable that ! the gein from this cause can reach anything ! like the amount which is ascribed to it in ! Mayors theory. The verdict of mere com | mon sense is certainly quite uncompromising- \ ly and internationally in the same direction, \ especially when it is taken into account that | the anvil upon which the meteoric blows l have to be delivered is more of the nature of | an ir-cushion fastened upon nucleus of .'putty," than of tho iron mass upon which ! tho blacksmith operates.