The daily Alaskan., 1917-01-02
A NATURAL PUZZLE
One of the Great Mysteries That
 Gonfeund Science.
THE FORGE OF EXAMINATION.

ILL ' VilSA= VI lAAlHdib HA AStsu This Wonderful Power That Keeps
 Suns and Planets In Their Courses
 May Be Wavos In the Ether That
 Push All 5odies Toward Each Other.
 The mystery of mysteries in science Is the attraction of grayitahon=-that very force of nature that is the most familiar to us all It seems strange that the most familiar thing in the world should be at the same time the most inexplicable, but so 1t Is.
 In order to see clearly wherein the mystery consists let us first consider what grayitatlon appears to be. It is gravitation that gives the property of weight to all bodies. If there were no grayitation we could float in the air. It is grayitation that brings a cannon ball eventually to the earth, no matter how swiftly 1t may be projected. The faster 1t starts the farther 1t will go, but during every second of its flight 1t drops the same distance vertically toward the earth, whether the speed imparted to 1t by the powder is 500 or 5000 feet per second. GraYitation acts on a moving body exactly as well as on one at rest
 It Is graEitation that curbs the mo- ton of the moon and keeps 1t in an orbit of which the earth Is the active focus. F.. ..
 So, too, it Is grayitation that gov erns the earth In Its motion around the sun, preventing 1t from flying away into boundless space. Astronomy shows that graYitation acts between all the planets and all the stars and controls their motions with respect to one an- other.
 Now, this mysterious force appears to be an attraction as if there were elastic cords connecting all the bodies in space and tending to draw them to- gether. But space, as far as our senses can detect, Is empty. How, then, can there be an attracdon7 In order that a body may be attracted or drawn there must be something to draw 1t, Gravitation does the trick, but com pletely hides from us the mechanism through which 1t acts. We can dis cover no mechanism at all.
 When m unfortunate aeroplanist drops from his machine he begins at once to fall toward the earth as If 1t were pulling him. But how can 1t pull If 1t has nothing to pull with2 You may think at first sight that 1t Is the air which acts as an intermediary, but that is not so, because the earth and the moon "puI' upon one another with a force equal to the strength of a steel cable 800 miles in diameter, but there Is no air and no other tangible thing in the open space, 24O,OO0 miles across, that gaps between the moon and the earth.
 Then gravitation exerts the same force at every instant No matter how fast the falling aeronaut may be descending at any moment, gravitation will keep on adding speed as if he had just started. Disregarding the slight retardation produced by the re- sistance of the air, be will fall six teen feet in,. the first second, forty eight feet in the second second, eighty feet in the third second, gaining thir- ty.two feet In his velocity during eE' cry second after the first. From a height of 10000 feet he would fall In about twenty-five seconds and would strike with a velocity of 400 feet per second.
 The same kind of calculation can be applied to the gravitation between the earth and the moon. If the moon were not in motion across the direction Of the earth's pull" 1t would fall to the earth in about 116 hours.
 Now. to return to the mystery, how is this force exerted2 Is 1t really a pull. as 1t seems to be? The answer to which science is tending Is that, in- stead of being a pull. gravitation is a push-in other words. that the falling aeronaut is pushed toward the ground and the moon is pushed toward the earth.
 On the face of 1t one might think that nothing was gained by this the ory, because 1t seems as impossible that a push should be exerted with out a tangible connection as pull. But the clew is found in the supposed properties of that invisible, intangible. all pervading medium called the ether.
 This, to be sure, Is explaining one mystery by another, for we know noth. ing about the ether except that 1t con- veys the waves of light and electric ity; but, at any rate. 1t affords a con ceivable explanation of gravitRdon.- Garrett P. SerYiss in New York Jour nal