The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-05-20
THE FORCES In A SUNBEAM.
The Lecture Of Bishop Warren at Ger
tral-Avenue Church Last Evening.
The Power and the Beauties Of Light, and the
Velocity with Which 1t Travels-An En-
tertaining and Interesting Talk.


Central-avenue NJ E. Church could accommo-
| date. gathered there last evening to hear Bishop
FL. w. Warren deliver his lecture on "The
Forces in Sunbeam They were well repaid
for their attendance. Not only Is the Bishop
vigorous and clear in his statement of scientific
facts, but he is apt and felicitous in anecdote
which, however, is never used by him except by
way of illustration.
He said that years ago it was his business to
teach natural science; now it was his recreation
He would. he said, speak of the finest forces
discoverable in the material universe, and for
these discoveries have been invented the finest
machinery, and to them have been devoted some
of the finest thought of the race. The forces in
a sunbeam-it comes to you as a gentle,
genial force, with kindly, peaceful
warmth and cquaintanceship-bu let US
speak Of its power for it is exceedingly full of
power Were room utterly dark, and the
smallest aperture opened toward the sun, q fiber
of light would dart in % inquire what was want
ing. And if it would answer, as it would If
rightly questioned, it would answer many very
important ones. We live in fast age, and we
might ask the little sunbeam how fast it trav
eled. That you may get some standards Of COM
parison, you will recall the story of Baron Mum
chausen and the cannon ball, and his motto to
tell the truth by lying. His idea was good-to
give vivid conception by means Of exaggera-
lion. lie said that once, when the army in
which he was was besieging fortress, as q cali
n-ball left the mouth of the gun, he jumped
astride and rode away. AS he rode he thought
of the danger that would befall him should he
fall into the midst of his enemies. Noticing a
returning cannon-ball, fred by the enemy, he
jumped astride, and rode back safely into camp
His cannon-balI was, however so slow
compared with light that it has
no value at all as measure of
velocity An American travelling in England
boosted of the rapidity of railroad trains In this
country, and illustrated it by speaking of a man
and a team on the track being signaled by the
whistle when the engine was half a mile away
but the train was under such Roadway that the
train dashed the man and team to one side.
wrecking the train, and as the passengers
picking themselves up out of the debris along
came the sound of that whistle. But that
whistle, with all tse American travellers exag
geration, was slow coach compared with light,
and of no value at all as a comparison. This
velocity of light is indicated and proven by
measurement. The moons of Jupiter 90 around
that planet. and are eclipsed every time they go
round. We know to a second every time one of
these eclipses Of the moons of Jupiter takes
place. Their light is hidden from us
164 minutes. In order for light to travel
1885, 000 900 of miles in 163 minutes light
must fly at the rate of 186, 600 miles second, and
that is the velocity Of light Set that down as
travel 186, 600 miles a second. Readers of Shak-
speare recall how Ariel, tricky sprite, offered to
put girdle round the earth in forty minutes
Here is an agent of such speed that it can go
round the earth in the eighth part of one second.
We take photographs by the aid OF the sun
beam, by what is called the instantaneous pro-
cess. During that brief time the line Of light
dashes in and does the work. We say the sun
rises in the morning. Really no one ever saw
the SUM- and it takes the light of that sun eight
min mi n
star is Alpha Centaur, and it is SO far away that
it takes three years for his light to get to u.s. In
the northern heavens the nearest is Epsilon
Lyra and its light is seven years in coming to US,
1t takes the light of the pole star half a century
to reach US and furnish light to the mariner TO
guide his ship Stars of the twelfth magnitude
are SO far away that it takes thousands of years
for their light to get to u.s. They may have
been smitten out of existence centuries ago, and
the light we see may have been emitted before
the birth of Adam We cannot compress power
enough behind little piece of lead to keep it
going. but when light is emitted it is with suf-
icient power to keep up it's rate of speed for
thousands OF years. maintaining the same force
with which it leaped from the glowing orb that
gave 1t birth. You may make light go in oppo-
site directions aS many times as you please
with perfect safety, and the rays always go by
The sunbeam is made up of many forces, aud
is ready to yield up the secret of It's composition
to any man who has skill to extract it. The
prism has separated light into seven colors and
all of them originally blended into pure white
light. Thus we discover that every ray of light
is made up of at least these seven forces that we
call different colors. They keep together, going
through the vast spaces, and yet no two walking
with an equal STEP Red steps twice as fast as
violet yet no straggler falls by the way. Sup
pose one of these ladies we're to sing the note G
of the soprano scale. Two hundred and fifty
six vibrations or steps per minute is the rate at
which the sound comes An octave above she
draws the vocal cords a little together, and the
sound coming out enters the and is
veyed to the soul at the rate of FIVE hundred and
sixteen vibrations or steps per second-that is
the velocity walking step of that sound.
You have noticed the deep bass. That is 100
steps. Her more quickly stepping notes do not
reach you five times quickly as his bass. No,
these notes all keep together they fly. and so
these various colors in light all keep together as
they fly the unobstructed spaces of the infinite
heavens
II sound comes to us with undulations and
vibrations, may 1t not be that light also comes
that way7 At eleven octaves the vibrations are
38. 600 per second. and the shrill high tones die
out in silence. Not because it dies there but
simply because we have reached our limit.
Fine cared woman is able to perceive things that
men get no idea of at all. She hears thin, fine,
shrill sound made by 10 600 vibrations per second,
while the heavier cared man who sits beside
her hears nothing at all except silence. That is
one reason that women talk so much more than
we men. Because they hear more. and that is rea-
son enough, You find that poets, half-inspired
men, time and again have represented this mu-
steal light as a fancy. Shakespeare. in the 'Mer-
chant of Venice" says:
Sit Jessica; look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patens of bright gold;
There's net the smallest orb which thou behold ST.
But in his motion like angel sings,
Still curing TO the young-eyd cherubins:
Such harmony is in immortal SOULS
But whilst this muddy vesture Of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannes hear it.
In truth we cannot hear it, and this book of
older poetry the Bible), has the same thought.
and the poetry of this book is always founded
ON the submest fact
The lecturer said that he once asked the as
tronomer Asaph Hall if he knew the poet laure-
ate of England should owe him sharp grudge
for having spoiled one of his most sonorous and
beautiful lines-the one in which he sung of ''the
frozen zones of moonless Mars'-after which
Prof. Hall had gone and discovered that Mars
had twice as many moons IS wa have thus Mt