Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-09-24
SCIENTISTS DEVOTION
Men Like Professor poolitt'e o'vs
Lives With Little Hope of
Material Rewards

TIME late Prof. Eric Doolittls once quoted
i nj, distinguished father as having said,
''The most remarkable discovery In astron-
omy would be finding some way TO make .
fortune out of it, Yet the elder Doohttie
spent his life in devotion 10 this science ana
raised two some who have folioweo ,,,,ns 10 nv
footsteps In spite Of the fact, early tnsulsd
into them, that they could hope for no ad-
equste material rewards.
Years ago the astronomer was man VINO
studied the stars and the solar system IN A1
aspects. Comparatively little was known
one man could find time tc master al! hat
had been learned. As the science broadened,
as instruments multiplied, as separate phe-
nom.nn revealed themselves, each promising
to lead 10 some new discovery, astronomy
became subdivided into branches, ahd every
branch became so important that few men
could master moro than one. so the rs
tropomer became q specialist; he devoted MS
life to collecting data and formulsunt
potheses which should bring out some nith-
erto unknown fact In his own branch, leAv-
ing to others It's possible application tc their
branches.
DERHAPS in no other phase OF human
l. I endeavor except religion has such utter
devotion OF self been shown as In astronomy.
Always before the student OF the stars looms
the fact that his tiny span OF threescore years
and ten Is not sufficient to unfold the re-
suits of the gigantic forces which remain AZ
puzzles to us he can but gather his share OF
the data and pass on. He dev0tes himself
to a new phase Of his science, knowing tull
well that he can do no more than huiid
part OF the foundation and that other hands
and other brains will rear the structure In
all its beauty long years after he Is dust.
Yet he goes devotedy on at his chosen
work.
In
IL stars. Most persons do not even know
what a double star Is. There are thousands
of amateur astronomers who look at double
stars and find in them certain delight that
they possess telescope good enough to re.
veal two points Of light where the naked eye
can see only one. 1t Is pride In q physical
possession; there their interest ceases. But
to Professor Doolittle the phenomena Of the
double stars loomed as the most important
thing in life. lie was firm in his belief that
some day man would know more OF the grent
forces that surround them. but that to know
that he must have tones OF data, laboriously
and painstakingly gathered. upon which to
base his calculations and prove his theories.
DERIAPS the best example to explain
L popularity what n double star Is is found
In the star Mizar. which il In the Rig Dipper
at the break or bend In the handle" To
a person with defective eyesight this appears
eyesight can, however. distinctly see tiny
star 30 close to it that the rays Of the two
seem to merge into each other. The Indians
call the pair 'the sauaw with the papoose
on her back" and they used them to test
the eyesight Of their own papooses. With
the ordinary opera glass the two stars can
be widely separated, and with a big telescope
they seem quite far apart. o..
Misar and Its little companion make a
naked eye double: that is. the COM
ponents are separated widely enough to make
telescope unnecessary to split them.
But there are thousands of doubles In the
heavens no close that only powerful instru-
ments can detect the space between. And.
incidentally. Mizar is notable again among
double stars in that the large star itself Ia d
double, but no telescope can "split" the COM
poncnts. Its duplicity has been revealed and
studied by means Of the spectroscope. and
the results indicate that the point Of light
which we see at the crook in the Dipper's
handle is formed by two huge bright bodies,
the pair together having a mass perhaps
forty times that Of our sun, and revolving
about common center. 140, 200. .000 miles
apart. with a relative velocity Of 100 miles
a second and in period Of about 104 days.
A CENTURY and half ago Sir William
"A Herschel began to study the double stars
| that were then known. The theory at the
| time was that these doubles had no connec-
tlon with each other, that they were simply
two stars which happened to be In the same
| line OF sight but that one was infinitely fur
ther away from us than the other.
Herschcl's interest was in using them to
find out their distance from the earth. lie
made exact measurements of the angular
| distance between them and their direction
from each other: then six months later. when
the earth was on the other side Of the sun,
! or some 1876 900 900 miles from its FIRST
| nnSitinn mi han
theory was that, with so great a change
In the earth's position. there would be
an alteration in the apparent distance be-
tween the stars because of the change In
| perspective. and that. by using this change
and the known base line. which was the
earth,s distance from the sum- he could figure
the distance of the nearer component of the
double star.
DUT the results did not encourage him.
ID and nfter time he gave It IN. Some
| twenty five years later, with imnroved In
struments he made one more attempt and
this. compared with his previous records.
gave him not what he was looking for hut
something infinitely more amazing tbnt
opened up n new branch of investigation in
astronomy.
For he saw that the motions of the com.
ponents of almost all Of his double stars
proved that they did not merely happen 10
be independent and merely by chance In the
line Of sight. but that they actually belonged
to each other physically and were revolving
about their common centers in great orbits
some Of which might take centuries to com
plete. ~ went out like Saul" he wrote.
Ito seek his fathers asses and found
kingdom"
C1NCE then astronomers the world over
~ have been delvinR relcntlessly into the
mysteries of the double stars. So huge are
the motions and so long does II require 70
make perceptible change in the postiops Of
some that many generations Of star -gazers
or their distances can even be guessed
There is one famous double which exceJ-
lently illustrates the marves about which
we at present know practically nothing. In
the constellation Of Iyra, near the bright
green star Vega, which Is directly overhead
about $3.50 in the evening now, is a little