Evening star., 1923-03-31
CAPITAL KEYNOTES
BY PAUL v. COLLINS

Hitch your wagon to a star" espe-
as predicted by some statesmen.
a brilliant and imaginative writer
or washington, star-gazinE, has con-
ceived the notion that all that IS nee
essary to break the monopoly of the
Standard Oil Company is to harness
the stars He even processes that the
experts Of the United States bureau
of standards have rigged I'D the nee
essary harness and prepared to start
tne machine. Let US see how q
star-drtven machine-an automobile
hitched to Jupiter or Venus. or the
double team--would go whizzing past
the traffic policeman.
X ;. X J:
IF you should take L teaSpooAful
OF water. and focus upon 1t all the
heat coming from a blue star and
could conserve all the heat, it would
take million years TO raise the tenn
perature Of that water one Degree"
says DR.. Coblentz OF the United States
bureau of standards, the expert who
has invented an instrument for meas
uring star heat His instrument is
so delicate that IL is sensitive to the
heat of a tallow candle lighted fifty
miles from 1t. and 1t detects the pres
ence of unknown dark, and therefore
invisible star, billions Of miles away,
so he knows how near II would come
70 running q machine. He has not
confirmed the report Of running John
d. Rockefeller out of business with
starry competition.
"All the heat. from all the stars in
the sky says DR.. Coblentz, IL it had
been focused upon q thimbleful of
water when Liberty Bell first rang.
and left so focused until today, would
not have raised the temperature of
that thimbleful more than IL de-
degrees fahrenheit That, too, Is with
the assumption that all the heat had
been conserved and accumulated"
The same day that witnessed this
alleged hitching of wagons to stars,
also brought more scientific news,
along parallel lines, in a cable from
Vichy had succeeded in harnessing
the electricity Of tho sunlight. SO
that he was able TO extract power and
light without cost OF operation.
There have been many partially
successful efforts to focus with mir
rors the direct rays of tho sun upon
tanks Of water. thereby creating
-fc q I,,+
the elcctricity-rathcr than sun heat
from the sunbeams. is quite different,
and may be revolutionary.
with an apparatus measuring
three yards square" he says, Il light
ten lamps Of nifty candle power each,
and heat my fiat. With A larger ap.
paratus, it would be easy to Eght d
whole town"
Presumably he means by accu-
mulating electricity gathered while
tho sun shone. into a storage battery.
from which II would be used In the
night for lighting. in addition to the
all-day use of the power. A home
equipped with such wireless light
ard power apparatus might even be-
come Independent Of certain munich
pal monopolies.
The inventors scientific explana-
tion OF his discovery is. that, while
the atmosphere is full Of both mega
tive and positive electricity, 1t has
been impossible. heretofore. TO sepa-
rate the two kinds. and they neu-
tralize each other. 1t is known that
ultraviolet rays, striking an cleo
trical current discharge it. or neu-
tralize 1t. The suns light is rich in
ultra violet rays, and so long as they
could not be extracted out OF the
beams, these neutralized the power
He has captured these ultra violet
rays with special antennac. The
ultraviolet acts upon the negative
rays only, so, when he controls their
action, and then pits the two cur
rents against each other" he gets
light and power.
That is far simpler, surely, than
Eiastein's theory of relativity, and
almost as clear as his later theory
which he cannot express in words