The New York herald., 1922-12-03
Aerial Science
Continued from Preceding Page.

quently taken him into Cloudland He
says: THE mastery of the air is in reality
an achievement of the twentieth CEN
tury- The heavier than air craft adopted
from the automobile the motive power
which has been such a large factor in
mankinds most recent major triumph.
The world war bequeathed to the present
generation a wonderful heritage. the
mastery of the air. The airplane now holds
open the doorways of a wonderland to
mankind" Mr.. Luckiesh is chiefly inter
ested in the aesthetic side of the clouds.
He explains the stratifcation of the clouds
and their types, and his book has many
photographs of great beauty.
Few people realize how revolutionary
the Einstein theory really is In "Gravi-
tation versus Relatively" Charles Lane
Poor, professor of celestial mechanics i'm
Columbia University, comes to the de-
fense of the conceptions of time and space
which have until now been accepted In
foreword Thomas c. Chamberlain, senior
editor of the Journal of Geology. says:
AT no stage in history has equipoise
in thinking been more vital to the well
fare of mankind than at the present time"
OF the Einstein theory he says: "It is
urged that the geometry of Euclid. the dy-
namics of Calico and the celestial mechan-
les of Newton are basally defective. The
law of wisdom is to test first and put into
the foundations afterward''
In his introduction Professor Poor out
lines his attack. He says: I'm 1865 Isaac
Newton developed his law of gravitation
and put 1t to test in the motion of the
moon. He found a minute discrepancy
between his theory and the actual motion
of the moon, difference of about 15 per
cent. of the observed motion. This small
discordance caused Newton to consider
his theory as not proved, and he laid aside
his work. Nearly twenty years later
new measurements of the earth were made,
and, urged on by HALEY, Newton corrected
his older calculations and showed that
his law on gravitation was substantially
correct. Then and then only did he an
nounce his theories. 1t was some twenty
years after Darwin first conceived his
theory of evolution before he made it pub
lie in his classic work. The theory OF rel
ativity on the other hand was announced
posed, selected by its author, and these
tests failed of confirmation by 20 ger
cent, by so per cent. even. and vet such
results were called thoroughly satisfac-
tory. This radical, this destroying theory
has been accepted as lightly, as easily
as one accepts correction to the es-
timated height of a mountain in Asia
or the source of a river in eouahorial
Africa Professor Poor shows that the
Einstein theory must be rejected accord
ing to the evidence submitted.
In practical Advanced Navigation"
Charles H. Coyle shows the reliance which
the trained sailor has in a fixed cosmos
Mr. Coyle was formerly chief of the Gulf
section of the United States Shipping
Board, and is now an inspector of huns
in the Steamboat Inspection Service at
New Orleans, where he conducts a nayiga-
ton school. His book is too technical
to be of interest to the general reader. but
it offers some light upon the merits of
relatively and gravitation His first
chapter. for example. is on Deviation by
Star, Planet and Moon" BY accepting the
Newtonian theory, he is able to tell the
position of the ship with as much precision
as the early Phoenicians, who steered by
the stars whereas, if Enstein were correct.
the navigator on the deepest sea would
have to contend with conditions such as
the river pilots Mark Twain describes
upon the Mississippi, which shifted its
banks and altered it's currents every hour