Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1909-07-03
LIGHT WITHOUT HEAT
The Puzzle Of the Tiny FREELY
and the Mighty Comet.
EACH HOLDS THE SECRET,
Il 10 q Mystery to Science, and the Man
Who Is Able to Penetrate That Mys-
terry Will Be In a Position to Revo-
lutionixe This Planet Of Ours.


terry Will Be In a Position to Revo-
lutionixe This Planet Of Ours.
This Is not an Aesop fable, although
Ii has moral.
There are two things in whose pres
ence science stands wondering and
abashed-the little glowwcrm Tor the
yet timer freely and the Mighty comet
archlng the sky with Its glimmering
train. Each Of them holds the same
secret-how to make light without
heat The man who gets that secret
will reyolutiOniZe the planet.
The late president Of the Royal AS
Economical Society Of Great Britain
referred to the value Of the comets
secret In his retiring address. He
thought that we do not sufficiently APP
preciate the wondrous spectacle of n
comets tail. 1t shows us hundreds OF
billions of cubic miles Of space stimuli
taneously glowing with luminosity
whose origin Is a mystery.
1t Is a gigantic experiment IN Il
branch Of physics Of which we as yet
know very little. The comet Is I'm
mersed in what we may well regard
as q vacuum: at least It is far more
perfect vacuum than we can produce.
Yet the persistent glow OF the comets
tail shows that there Is no real vacuum
there, but Il vast quantity Of extreme
ly attenuated matter which no doubt
is the cause Of the luminosity.
We ought, Professor Newall thinks,
to awake to the Importance OF this
hint. "Who knows" he says, "wheth-
er, IL we could discover method OF
disrupting gases and vapOrs in ultra
vacuous spaces artifclally maintained
on earth. We should not have meth
cd of artificial illumination as ecOnom-
ical as that of the glOwwOrm and as
brilliant as is needed for our nocturnal
life?
This thing may really be within our
reach, although at the present time
we cannot even suggest to ourselves
exactly how Ii Is to be attained. But
the tendency Of recent investigation Is
in that direction. AS Sir John Her
schel said Of another discovery which
was just at the door, 1--WE can feel 1t
trembling along the farreaching line
of our analysis"
There are not q few men, who are
regarded by their harder headed scien'
tific brethren as "dreamers," who pic
ture to themselves a fast coming time
when we shall not only obtain light at
as cheap a rate as the freely has IT.,
but when we shall have tapped the ex-
haustless stores Of energy that sleep
all around us In nature.
We are like one In q dream sus-
pended I'm the midst Of vast work
shop crowded with multitudinous ma
chimes, all whirling and futtering In
a storm Of energies, but which he can
neither control nor understand. II
we could see these things they might
terrify us, as the dreamer Is terrified
by the whirring belts and spinning
wheels OF his vision, seeming to grasp
at his life.
If the scientific investigator needs
TO establish Il raison d'etre in the eyes
Of the public, which cannot follow
either his processes or his results, he
has only to point to the fact that the
greatest practical discoveries of mod
erp times have come out Of the labora-
tories from things as incOmprehensible
to the initiated as so much magic. 1t
is we'll known fact that the growing
might OF Germany springs from her
devotion to "pure research"
Referring again to the pregnant hint
of the comet, Professor Newall fs
clearly right in saying. Here Is n
theme that should stir up the most
commercial mind In the support OF as
trOnomy "-Garrett r. Serviss In New
York American.