The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1915-12-10
OUR FLYING WORLD
Its Awful Velocity In Its Spiral
WhirI Through Space.
THE RESULT If 1T STOPPED.
Were Its Motion Suddenly Arrested the
Earth Would Be Vaporized by the
Would Blaze In the Heavens.


Earth Would Be Vaporized by the
Heat Generated and a New Nebula
Would Blaze In the Heavens.
The direction and speed of the earth &
fight are the resultants of two motions
with which it is endowed-the one
around the SUM- the other with the sun
straight away through space. The com
bination of these simultaneous motions
causes the earth to travel in a spiral
path whose axis is directed nearly to
ward the bright star Vega, the most
beautiful in 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 1t shares with the sun, is
about twelve miles per second. We
may call the resultant or combined
speed of the earth in its actual spiraI
trajectory twenty-five miles per second
This means that if you could stanG
beside it and see the earth rush by its
whole enormous globe, 5000 miles il
diameter, would pass your eye in about
six minutes. 1t means that in one day
and night Gwenty-four hours) the earti
travels 1,900,S00 miles!
Compared with the velocity of pro
jectiles, the speed of the earths flight
Is so great that the swiftest of then
would seem to stand still. A rifle bu
let may go, say, One-third of a mile PEI
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 a mile per second, OIL
forty y-four times slower than the earth
If cannon could be planted out iI
space and fired 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 a deer's side and If the shot
were aimed at the front edge Of the fly
ing earth Gmagining the latter fiat like
disk and fired with an undiminishinG
velocity of half mile per second +
would not only miss its mark, but the
whole breadth Of the earth would have
passed by before the bail had traverseC
tenth of the original distance sepa
rating the cannon FROM the earth
The motion Of the earth becomes pos
sibly even more impressive when W.
consider the awful energy that it pro
duces. Kinetic energy, or the capacity
10 do work, such as striking blow. i.
measured by multiplying the mass ol
the moving body by the square of it,
velocity and dividing the product by 2.
In order to get the result in foo
pounds we reckon the mass in pound,
and divide again by 81 or by Ga in all
The reason for dividing by 80 (mort
exactly 81. lSl is that that number is
the unit lin feet per second) of the
earth's gravitation. or the acceleratior
of gravity.
Calculated in this way, the kinetiC
energy Of the earth comes out at more
than ninety septillion 80 followed by
twenty-four zeros) foot pounds! Fig
ured in another way, the energy in the
flying earth is equivalent to nearly
three sextillions 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 al
its energy turned into driving machin.
cry 1T would develop nearly three sex
tillions of horsepower. But if it were
brought to rest in one second it would
! develop sixty times more horsepower
Then we may consider the thermal
effects of the earth's kinetic energy If
by instantaneous arrest of the motion
| it were turned into heat There would
be a sudden development of so tremen
dous a temperature that the earth
might be yaporized. Puff, And some
astronomer on some distant planet
aiming his telescope through the COO
evening air, would catch sight of a lit
tie new nebula, twinkling like a thistle
down blown into the sky of space.
Thereafter the dissipated earth would
J appear in catalogue on that farof
world under the name of Jones Neb-
ula," and nobody. casually glancing al
1t from an observatory and unsympa
thetically noting its extreme exiguity
would ever think of the heartbreakina
history that had been nebulized in that
speck OF cosmic vapor.-Garrett P
| Serviss in New York Journal