New-York tribune., 1920-02-08
Professor Lowell Held That Mar
tians Were Far Advanced in
Inventions and Science


asking If, after all, he was not mis-
taken in at least one particular.
and If the Signals" picked up in
New York and London were not
efforts on their part to notify the
earth folk Of their desperate plight.
No unusual manifestations to sup
port this view have been witnessed
recently on the distant planet, but
it is at least a new guess on tho
subject, which is all that its oris;-
nators claim for it.
Tesla Believes 1t
To Nikola Tesla there is nothing
remarkable or impossible in the sug-
gestion that the mysterious signals
are from the Martians. Discussing
the question, he said:
"To most people the mere idea Of
flashing signal over the immense
gulf of 50,000,000 or 100000, 900
miles will naturally appear prepos-
ferrous, but as l have stated In an
article I wrote for The Harvard
illustrated Magazine of March,
1907, it is simply feat Of electrical
engineering, apparently hazardous,
but made perfectly feasible through
inventions with which the experts
are familiar.
THAT the planets are inhabited is
a foregone conclusion. 1t would be
stupid to deny the existence of con-
ditions suitable for the development
of organic life on other planets"
The next question is how the
earth is to reply to these signals,
supposing they are signals at all,
and what are the atmospheric OBJ
stacles that will have to be over
come.
Mars at times is only 5o,ooo,ooo
miles away from the earth and at
other times 250,oo0,Oo0. It is fre-
quently surrounded by vapors, as
is the case, too, with Venus, witch
would be extremely difficult of pen
etration by light radiation, but the
chief problem to be met would be
the creation of a wireless apparatus
OF sufficient strength to send a mes
sage over the required distance.
Dr.. Charles P. Steinmetz, chief con-
sultlng engineer Of the General
Electric Company, believes such an
instrument possible, provided the
world devoted itself to the invention
with the same thoroughness it en-
ployed in the great war, but esti-
mates it would cost at least $1,000
100000 to do it.
Wireless messages have been
transmitted over distance of from
5000 to 1000 miles when conditions
were favorable. although an official
of the Radio Corporation Of Amer
lea, OF which the Marconi system is
part, said that signals had been
sent as far as 10000 miles under
unusual circumstances.
But there is one thing that
should be remembered" said David
Sarnof, commercial manager of the
Radio Corporation Of America, "that
there are a great many conditions in
the atmosphere of which we do not
know, even when sending message.
say, across the Atlantic or even a
shorter distance.
I'VE know something about wave
lengths, and we know what happens
when we send a message and when
we receive it, but what happens en-
route is still pretty much of a mys-
terry.
Falls Would Help
'1n connection with the actual
practicalities in sending a wireless
message over such a distance as that
between the earth and Mars, that,
may say, is something about which
the newspaper men know almost as
much as we do. But the chief
problem, 1t would seem to me. would
be to find an instrument powerful
enough, rather than anything else,
and this would be no small achieve
ment. We would have to harness
Niagara Falls and every other power
producing agency that know of to
do it."
Electricity travels at a speed of a
little more than 10000 miles a
second, and a message going at
that rate would take g little more
than twenty-five minutes to reach
Mars when it is at it's furthest point
from the earth, and about four min
utes and twenty-one seconds when it
is nearest. According to the same
calculation it would take two min
utes and eighteen seconds to send
radiogram to Venus, two minutes
and fifty-nine seconds to the sun,