The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-03-20
Hp4ed That Is Too Great for the Average
Hind to Fully Comprehend

Breed That Is Too Great for the Average
Mind to Fully Comprehend.
II you could take all the people in the
world and set them out in space mile
apart, like mile posts along railroad, and
then atthe farther end use all the dogs and
cats to extend the line Of mile posts, you
would run far short of material to mark
the distance out to the earth's brother
planet, Neptune. Again, If you could use
all this material of men, women, children,
dogs and cats, and put them out SO that
they would be as far from one another az,
Boston is from San Francisco, your limo
wouldn't be half long enough to reach To
the nearest star.
On clear night the average eye will
readily see stars as low as the sixth magni-
tude. Such shining beauty as Sirius
winks at you so archly that it seems al
most impossible that years are consumed
in the passage of its rays to the earth,
when we remember that light travels more
than $50. 0O8 miles in a second. Yes, If the
nearest of the beautiful twinklers should
be blotted out at this moment we should
still see it without the slightest change in
appearance two or three years after chi
cago cleans up the debris of the World q
fair.
But even star so far away as that seems
nearly within touching distance when we
find that other stars visible with the tele-
scope, are so far away that, for all we
know, they may have been blotted out be-
fore Cain and Abel were born. That is TO
say, if one of those far distant orbs had
been utterly annihilated, as you would
snuff out a candle, when Adam and Eve
4 l. no Coz Of
Eden, the rays then starting toward the
earth, notwithstanding the awful speed OF
light could not get here in time to meet
the closing of the Nineteenth century.
How do re know that light travels at
such wonderful speed2 Up to about two
hundred and twenty-five years ago it was
supposed that rays of light from all the
celestial otbs passed instantly TO the OBJ
servers eye The old astronomers, in fact,
never took thought of the matter at all
They simply saw the sun and the stars,
but they never dreamed that the rays from
them had to journey millions, billions and
trillions of miles in getting TO mundane
eyes. II was the great fortune Of Danish
astrono ner to make the discovery that
light, as well as sound or a railway train
requires given time to travel given dis
lance.
Roemer, the famous Dane alluded to,
was led TO his discovery by observations OF
the eclipses of Jupiter's moons. He found
that there was difference of several min
utes in these eclipses, that they occurred
earlier when the earth was on the side OF
the sun nearest TO Jupiter and later when
farthest away. With this data as start
ing point he soon found that the differ
ence of apparent time resulted from the
time required for light to travel across the
diameter of the earth's orbit. about one
hundred and eighty-two million miles
This time proved TO be about sixteen min
utes, and as half that would be the time
from the earth TO the sun the mystery W as
solved
The accuracy of this calculation has since
been verified by other methods, and all
authorities now agree that the velocity OF
light is not far from Isl, 900 miles second.
Ii Is difficult for the mind 70 grasp and
comprehend such speed The swiftest ami
mated thing Is undoubtedly the pigeon,
which has been known TO travel hundreds
Of miles at the rate Of fifty miles an hour.
A little srithmetical exercise Will show
that it would take pigeon more than zoo
wears 20 cover the distance TO the sun a.
fifty miles an hour without a stop. and 20
20 as far as Neptune It would take the
bird nearly q thousand years
When we wan. an illustration Of speed
we often use the expression swift a. a
cannon ball" But If you could fire can
non ball 80 the sun when yoz are college
freshman your hair would be sprinkled
! with gray when the bali stopped. for you
would be seventeen years Older than when
you fred the sho1-philadelphia Times