The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936, 1906-09-28
WEIGHT OF THE sun.
HOW THE ASTRONOMERS SOLVE
THIS WONDERFUL PROBLEM.

II You VIII Multiply 1896 by Sever
Sextillions, You VIII Get Approx.
mately the Number of Tons of Mat.
ter Contained In the Great Orb.
To weigh the sun, moon, earth OF
any other body, said Professor Edgar
l.. Larkin, the celebrated director OF
Echo Mountain observatory, to the
writer, Is not a very difficult matter,
though to those ignorant OF astronomy
and mathematics it would perhaps ap-
pear so. OF course weight Is merely a
relative term, for at the exact center
of gravity a body weighs nothing at
all. Weight varies as we approach the
gravitation point or recede from it,
and the expression as employed in ev-
eryday life-when we buy q pound of
steak or a ton of coals-slmply means
the weight used on the surface of the
earth because we live there.
Now, suppOsing you are DESTROYS of
weighing the earth, how would you go
about 1t? Well, if your education had
been neglected and you were In conse-
Quence ignorant Of mathematics you
might decide to cut up this terrestrial
globe of ours in blocks and bring each
block to the surface OF the earth and
there weigh 1t on an ordinary pair of
scales. The operation would doubtless
be a costly and f~atiguing one, and per-
haps many unscientifc landowners
might object to your carrying off their
property even though you explained
loan. But let us for arguments sake
suppose that you succeeded.
Well, having carried each block to
the surface (and many of them would,
of course, have been brought from the
very center of the EARTH one at a
time returning each to its proper place
before weighing the next and having
discovered that each block weighed a
ton, then before your labors ended and
the last block Of earth had been placed
on the scales you would have dealt
with rather less than seven sextillions.
This of course is q tremendous num-
Der Of tons for any moving mass TO
weigh, but there is q time twice each
year when the earth actually weighs
nothing at all. In October last this
earth gradually began to lose weight
like some huge giant dying of a de-
cline until at a certain moment of time
it weighed only an ounce, then half an
ounce. then a quarter, and finally. iust
for about the fifty-thoRsandth part o.
q second, it weighed absolutely nothing
whatever-not even so much as a soap |
bubble which a baby might blow away. /
To realize this you must remember |
that the earth does not travel round
the sun IN an exact circle, so that tbs
distance from the sun is always vary
ing, which Of course alters the power
of attraction or, in other words, the
earth's weight. But in October and
April of each year the earth is at an
exact average distance during the frac-
ton of a second, at which time, as I
have said before, it weighs nothing.
How short a space of time this is may
be judged from the fact that the earth
at the rate Of eighteen and a
half miles every second.
But to weigh the earth in the manner
suggested would be a very costly mat
ter, and so it is found to be more sat
lsfactory to employ mathematics, when
we shall arrive at the same results, as
Of curse that we are correct
in our deductions. And now as to the
most usual means employed in weigh
ing the sun. Having satisfied ourselves
as to the true weight of the earth, we
call that One or Unity" That is
basis on which we work.
The next thing to do is to mount to
some elevation-the top of a tower or
he roof of a house will answer our
purpose very Well-drOp q stone and
ind out how far it will fall in one sec
Of time and what its exact rate of
speed will be at the end of the first
second.
This is not SO easy as it sounds, but
can. spare ourselves the fatigue of
calculating, for after 300 years scien-
lists have by mean of the most deli
ate instruments arrived at the proved
conclusion that at the end of the first
econd the stone will be at a distance
# 16.1 feet from the starting point and
will be then travelling at the rate of
% feet per second. This 32.2 is the
most important factor in our calcula-
ions and has been called the astrO-
lomical scales, for by means Of it we /
an weigh the sidereal universe. {
Now, here, said Professor Larkin,
aking a paper from his desk, is an ar '
icle which 1 wrote some time ago on 7
be weighing of the sun, and I do not !
hink you can do better than make an
from it, which will saw me
luch needless repetition, and he hand +
d me the manuscript, from which l +
uote the following paragraphs: 7
Every object in the celestial vault 7
cen by the eye Of man is a falling r
ody. The earth is a body forever fall
lg toward the sun and the moon for
yer toward the earth. If we can find
18th what speed the earth is falling to-
ard the sun at the end Of our exact t