The Washington herald., 1908-01-19


D'd you know that the yardstlck with
Which YOU raise your windows, the tape
You throw about your shoulders. the
ruler that came in contact with your
' loushened palm in school days. all are
supposed to be exactly correct in ac-
eordanoe with piece OF metal over in
france. with two scratches on il, wrap
ped In cloth and sealed up in a vault
thirty feet under the ground? is the
question asked by the Bostoa Herald.
Didn't know that2
Dld you know that every ten years an
international committee ON weights and
measures goes over 10 Paris. and with
great solemnity uuseals that under
ground vault, gently unwraps the piece
Of metal with the scratches on it. gag
ing upon the fetish I'm awed silence. and
then compares with it a lot OF copies to
see that they are correct within one
twenueth-millionth OF an inch?
Never heard that before?
Measuring Waves Of Light.
Did YOU know that scientists found
THAI the old style Of measuring. by
which they could tell the size of thing
within one twentieth-thousandt Of an
inch, was so fearfully antiquated and
inadequate that they had to so ex-
perimenting for a way OF measuring
that was really somewhere near the
marlJ2
And that after q while Prof. Albert
Abraham Nicholson. formerly Of Clark
University In Worcester. and now head
of the department Of physics in Chicago
University found out that wave 1f
light is ahuut-he couldn't be exact. more
is the pity-is about one ffty-thousandth
Of an inch long, and that by stringing
L0t00oG or 100000 light waves together.
side by side. according 90 their color. he
could get meter?
Surely you must have heard Of that2
Isn't it about time 20 find out whether
that yard Of broadcloth you Just bought
Is exact whether you didn't get cheated
10 The extent Of three or four light rays?
or perhaps you arn't quite as tall as you
thought you were II so. il looks as If
you'd have TO wait until the next time
they open up that sealed vault and uu-
wrap the standard meter They only do
that once every ten years.
Prof Nicholson was last month
awarded the Noble prize for achieve
ment In optical spectr0scopics. and his
discovery of the possibilities Of meas
urement by the use of light ravs I'm
ether was the most potent factor in his
winning OF the prize. He has just return
ed from Sweden. where the immense
medal and the $4,000 were awarded him.
and describes his experiments In meas
uremeut.
He says:
Need Of EXactness.
For scientific purposes, It is necessary
that there shall be some way of de-
termining with exactness the length Of
the standard meter Everything that we
measure, whether it be a planet or a
yard OF gingham, IS measured according
10 that standard meter. 1 find that there
arc few people who know anything about
the standard meter
Ask the average man why q yard is
yard. and he viii say. Why is a foot a
FOOT? Why. because
In the old days science would be sat
tsfed with q measurement that came
within one twenty -thousandth part Of an
inch, but that would never do nowadays
when We can measure down TO one
twenty-mlliOnth Of an inch.
consequently, II was necessary to get
at some method by which the standard
could be determined with the utmost pre-
cision. Various methods were tried and
there was one German professor who ex-
perimented with the light rays. but he
did not succeed in getting closer 10 ex-
aCtnea5 than others had got with pen
dulum vibrations and other experiments
along various lines, which produced only
approximate results.
4 did not start out deliberately to find
the length OF light waves and apply that
IN determining the standard meter. The
discovery came while I was working an
another problem. I wanted TO ascertain
whether the ether which surrounds the
earth is stationary, the earth rotating
through it, or whether It moved with the
earth"
Does It make any difference"
Everything Makes Difference.
Not TO YOU, perhaps but everything
which has to do with the construction of
matter makes q difference to the phys
ic-st- He wants to know these things.
not because lie wants to operate a mill,
or conduct an electric light plant. but
because lie believes that everything in
the world Is worth knowing.
To conduct the experiment on the
ether 1 had a small instrument. which
consisted of piece Of convex glass on
fiat surface. Under this glass were
varying thickness OF air, graduating 20
zero az the point where the glass touched
the flat surface. The light shining
ing through the glass produced on the I
surface beneath. it rings Of light grad /
uatlng IN size according TO the thickness |
or the atmosphere under the glass.
BY moving this glass. increasing and /
decreasing the quantity OF air beneath !
the glass the rings were separated or /
concentrated. Without going too much
into technicalities it was i'm this way
that discovered the length of a light
wave and conceived the proper way of 4
measuring a standard meter. The waves \
of different kinds Of light have various .
lengths. but speaking generally. a light
wave is about one ffty-thousandtb nj an
inch long. II takes from 1.500.00 10
100000 light waves 10 make meter. de-
pending upon the color Of the light.
And after YOU have them all added
up you simply know that @ meter is a .
meter"
That's all, but, personally, I was glad .
TO find it out.
4 Fishing Cats Record.
From the Bangor News.
Buster Brown, the fishing and hunt |