Omaha daily bee., 1919-05-02
The Heavens in Man
By WILLIAM F. RIGGE.

This month a most important and
unusual phenomena will occur in
the heavens, or rather l should say
somewhat unusual and rare even,
will be observed for most unusual
purpose. 1t is total eclipse of the
sun that happens on the 10Th, that
is causing this stir in astronomical
circles. Not that such an eclipse
should be so rare, since there is one
June last year all along the line
about every two years and we our
selves had good look at one on
from the state of Washington to tina,
OF Florida, but this total eclipse OF
the 10Th of this month will be OBJ
served for new purpose. The
magnificent corona that surrounds
the totally eclipsed sun, which is the
chief attraction in such cases, will
now be practically ignored and re-
jected, | might say, for something
OF far greater value. And what is
this that should be quickly and so
recently outweigh the corona in i'm
portance? 1t is, in a word, the law
of gravitation itself that is on trial
at this eclipse, the law of gravita-
ton established by Isaac Newton
over two centuries ago and accepted
ever since by all scientific men, not
the mere fact of universal gravita-
ton. however, but its nature. Letsus
see what this means.
Let us begin by asking ourselves,
what is gravitation? The most of Us
will have to answer, we don't know.
And we will have over SO per cent
of our fellow mortals to keep us
company. Even after reading the
most learned treatises and bringing
our profoundest mathematics to bear
upon the subject. we shall know very
little more. All we know is the
tendency of all bodies to approach
one another with force proportion
al directly to the product OF their
masses or the amount of matter they
contain and inversely to the squares
of the distances between them, and
this tendency we call gravltation.
The fact is we'll and thoroughly
known and is applied continually to
the motions of the heavenly bodies,
which come up to their predicted
places as accurately as we can OBJ
serve. But the nature of the force
is not known. We do not know
whether it is a pull or a push, or
what the medium is through which
it acts, or whether as fact it actual
Nv uses medium at all. We know
that the velocity of propagation of
a force in any medium depends
upon the nature of the medium and
not at all upon the force, as per
example, all sounds travel through
the air at the same speed under the
same conditions. We also know that
the luminiferous ether which trans
mits light, heat and electricity, can
propagate motion only at the rate
of $4,000 miles a second. From
this it follows that gravity, IT 1t
uses the ether as its medium, could
not possibly affect bodies instantane-
ously at all distances, as it is sup
DOSeQ 10 10. l. nus, dS liSitt tonSS "
minutes to come to us from the sun,
if gravity came 8 minutes late, the
earth would run away ON the tangent
line and the sun would be too slow
to hold it. On the other hand it is
inconceivable that gravity should
need no medium at all. There then
is serious contradiction, which has
taxed the mental acumen OF the
most learned men for quite a while.
The answer may be very easy, but
we do not know it now. 1t may be
as easy as it is to a telephone man
and as hard to a student and non
professional to answer the question
as to whether, when we take the tel
ephone off its hook and call central,
we thereby make or break circuit.
If we make circuit, then before that
our circuit was broken, and how
could we be called? If we break
circuit, then how can we talk?
Not only do we not know the ma