The Olneyville times. (Olneyville [Providence, R.I.]) 1887-1917, 1915-11-19
OUR FLYlHG WORLD
its Awful Velocity In Its Spiral
Whlrl Through Space.
THE RESULT IF IT STOPPED.
Were Its Motion Suddenly Arrested the
Earth Would Be Vaporized by the
Heat Generated and New NebuIa
Would Blaze In the Heavens.

Earth Would Be Vaporized by the
Heat Generated and New NebuIa
Would Blaze In the Heavens.
The direction and speed Of the earth's
flight are the resultants OF two motions
with which II is endowed-the one
around the sun, the other with the sun
straight away through space. The com
bination OF these simultaneous motions
causes the earth TO travel In spiral
path whose axis Is directed nearly to-
ward the bright star Vega, the most
beautiful I'm the northern sky.
In its orbit or annual path around
the sun, the earth's mean speed Is
eighteen and one half miles per second.
while its speed Of transition toward
Vega. which IL shares with the sun, Is
about twelve miles per second. We
may call the resultant or combined
speed of the earth in its actual spiral
trajectory twenty-five miles per second
This means that If you could stand
beside 1t and see the earth rush by its
whole enormous globe, 5000 miles In
diameter, would pass your eye I'm about
six minutes. 1t means that I'm one day
and night Cwenty-four hours) the earth
travels 1000, 800 miles.
Compared with the velocity Of pro-
jectiles, the speed of the earth's fight
Is so great that the swiftest Of them
would seem to stand still. A rifle bul-
let may go, say, one-third Of mile per
second in the first moments OF its flight
that is, sixty times slower than the
earth, which never stops or slows up.
The initial velocity of some projec-
tiles may be half mile per second, or
forty-four times slower than the earth.
III cannon could be planted out in
space and fred at the earth from dis
tance equal to one-quarter of the earth's
diameter (Which would be like hunter
firing his rifle about eighteen inches
from deer's side) and If the shot
were aimed at the front edge Of the fly
ing earth Imagining the latter fiat like
a disk and fred with an undiminishing
velocity Of half mile per second 1t
would not only miss its mark, but the
whole breadth of the earth would have
passed by before the ball had traversed
one-tenth of the original distance sepa-
rating the cannon from the earth.
The motion of the earth becomes pos
sibly even more impressive when we
consider the awful energy that 1t pro-
duces. Kinetic energy, or the capacity
to do work, such as striking blow. Is
measured by multiplying the mass of
the moving body by the square of its
velocity and dividing the product by 2.
In order to get the result in foot
pounds we reckon the mass I'm pounds
and divide again by 81 or by Ga in all
The reason for dividing by 80 (more
exactly 32.1S) is that that number is
the unit lin feet per second) of the
earth's gravitation, or the acceleration
OF gravity.
Calculated in this way, the kinetic
energy Of the earth comes out at more
than ninety septillion go followed by
twenty-four Zeros) foot pounds! Fig
ured in another way, the energy i'm the
flying earth is equivalent 20 nearly
three seXtillons of horsepower the
horsepower being the measure of the
work done by $4,000 foot pounds OF
energy developed in one minute.
That Is to say, If the earth could be
brought to rest In one minute and all
its energy turned into driving machin-
cry it would develop nearly three sex
tillions of horsepower. But IL ii were
brought to rest in one second il would
develop sixty times more horsepower!
Then we may consider the thermal
effects of the earths kinetic energy IL
by instantaneous arrest of the motion
1t were turned into heat. There would
be sudden development of so tremen-
dous temperature that the earth
might be vaporized. Puff! And some
astronomer on some distant planet,
aiming his telescope through the cool
evening air. would catch sight of a lit
tie new nebula. twinkling like thistle
down blown into the sky Of space.
Thereafter the dissipated earth would
appear in catalogue on that faroff
world under the name of Jones Neb-
ula," and nobody, casually glancing at
1t from an observatory and unsympa-
thetically noting its extreme exiguity,
would ever think of the heartbreaking
history that had been nebulized I'm that
speck of cosmic vapor-Garrett r.
Serviss I'm New York Journal