Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1908-09-12
THERE ARE PROBLEMS
THAT CAN'T BE SOLVED
Growing Blue Roses, Absolute Zero
and SquarIng the Circle Have
Worn Out Many
Minds

There died in the year 1902 in st.
Felix, small village in the depart
ment OF Haute Garonne, France,
wealthy octogenarian horticultural.
who spent the last forty-five years of
his life and a sum variously estimated
at from 100000 to $4,000 in attempting
to produce by artificial cultivation a
blue rose.
He failed, and that for the best of
reasons-the task is one impossible of
accomplishment. AS De Candolle.
great authority OH this subject, has
pointed out, yellow and blue are the
fundamental types of color in flowers.
and these colors are antagonistic, mu-
tually excluding each other. yellow
by culture may be changed into red or
white, but never into blue. On the
other hand, blue will pass into red, but
never into yellow. We have a. yellow
| rose; hence there is no blue.
The pursuit of the absolute zero point
Is to chemists what the discovery of
the north pole is to geographers. Ever
since Fahrenheit, in 1874, preached the
problem scientists innumerable have
| striven to reach the goal in vain, all
| though each, in turn, has succeeded in
outdistancing the other, says the Bal
timore Sun.
Thus Fahrenheit boasted that no one
could ever attain artificially to a great
er degree of cold than he produced
with salt and ice-7 degrees below zero
although, Of course, he did not sup
pose the cold ended there. Yet within
few years of his death more than 100
degrees below had been obtained, and
Prof. James DeWar, whose researches
ne 1nrrr fnr1a afaV.u f4rrs IA avn.
brought out so many new and start
ling facts, succeeded by cooling down
the rare gas helium by the aid of Iique-
| fed hydrogen in registering the almost
| 1nconceivable temperature of 422 de-
grees below zero, Fahrenheit. But this
is not absolute zero, and the problem
remains unsolved.
The Philosophers Stone
| Here and there, in odd corners of the
earth gray, bent men still pore over
crucibles seeking the philosophers
stone-that mysterious and wonderful
substance that will, they believe, when
found, change the baser metals into
gold. 1t never will be found, of course,
for such a substance in the nature of
things can have no concrete existence.
Nevertheless, for hundreds of years the
best brains and keenest intellects in
Christendom have sought it early and
| late.
Nor were their labors wholly wasted,
for it was while searching for this
mythical treasure that Bottbet STUN
bled on the secret of manufacturing
| porcelain; Roger Bacon on that of the
| composition of gunpowder; Geber on
the properties of acids; Van Helmont
on the nature of gas, and Dr. Glauber
on the "salts" which bear his name.
After similar fashion, too, the
three century long hunt for the elixir
of life bequeathed to US a whole host
of valuable remedial drugs and was the
means indirectly Of saving or. at all
events, prolonging literally millions of
lives.
So, also, as the result of the vain
search after perpetual motion there
was evolved the greatest of all the
congratulations OF modern physical sci
ence. the principle of the conservation
of energy, and even now more or less
important discoveries arel being con-
stantly stumbled on by seekers after
the same perennial wiIl-o'-t he-wisp.
No one has yet succeeded in extract
ing the square root of 2, although DR..
w. H. Covil succeeded in working II
out to no fewer than ITO places of deei-
mails, and. moreover, his Titanic sum
has been proved to be absolutely cor
rect, so far as 1t goes.
/ Undoubtedly. however, Of all the now
admittedly unsolvable figure problems
which have from time to time occupied
the attention of mathematician. the
| most famous is that generally known
| as sduaring the circle. The time and
energy thrown away upon 1t in days
| gone by are simply amazing. A Dutch
professor Jacob Marcells by name,
worked at it for forty-three years.