The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-07-06

ada. by North American Newspaper AL
 liance, for The Age-Herald) - :.
 By LEMUEL F. PARTON .-
 AUBURN, N. T., July 4-Theodore w. Case, an American scientist of this city, was two years ahead of European physicists in listening to the stars While the cables have just brought the news of the success of General Gus tave Ferrie of France in making audible the singing of the stars" Case was the first earth-dweller to be admitted to the stellar concerts If Mars, when she swings closer to the earth this summer than she. has been for hun dred years, has anything to say to the Earth, Case has an apparatus which will receive her message. ,'t' -. -
 By placing a photo-electric cell at the focus of paraboloid mirror, and con meeting it with a radio "hook-up," Case gets from Mars a high-pitched musical note, broken by a steady flow of sig nals" almost like dot-and-dash code.
 Hears Stars Twinkle s.
 Being careful and conservative sci enlist, Case does not interpret the sig nals as Martian Morse. His theory is that the broken sounds are. due to the Nefraction of the light through atmo- spheric layers of varying dehsity-in other words. he simply hears ihe stars twinkle. But at that, Case. has plug ged in,' in the event that Mars, or any other planetary neighbor, wants to say hello to us. 7'.
 A word about the young American who has led the scientists of the world in this new exploration of the cosmic wilderness. He was graduated from 1ale in 1912 and received an honorary degree for scientific research from George Washington university in 1918. He is a contributor to many scientific publications, and is member of the, Royal Society. of Arts, of London, the American Physical Society, the Ameri- can Society for the Advancement of Sci ence and other scientific bodies. He was associated with Lee De Forest in the perfection of the talking movie and is the inventor of an Invisible light-sig- naling system for use during the war. He is one of the foremost scientists of the world in the exploration of problems involving light reactive phenomena, and has, at Auburn completely equipped laboratory for research in this field. It was after years of patient expert mcntation that Case heard the first faint impulsions--the first ever at- tuned to, the ear of man-traversing the stellar deeps. .'... .s
 What Mars Needs
 Easing his assertion on an authori- tative study by F. R. Basset, Case es- inmates that if Mars wishes to reach us by light signals this summer, she will require a bank of POO 60-inch searchlights. If Mars is ready, with a beam of this magnitude, the Earth can receive her signals. However, it will be necessary to await the message on a high mountain top, where the air will be thin enough to assure freedom from interference by the twinklipg of the planet.
 But how could we possibly communi- cate with Mars, having no basis of Ian guage or experience? The astronomers believe this would be easily solved. We would have in common the solar and stellar universe, conjunction, opposi tion, aphelion and perihelion of plan cts, which, it is believed would quickly result in evolving a new inter-planetary cosmic language which would gradually include more and more basic concepts of time, and spatial relationships, heat and cold, distances, light and dark and other fundamentals of experience which might be shared by sentient beings. May Avert War
 If the folks on Mars get to talking to Case they will like him. Some astrono- mers are now saying that the. Earth stole the moon from Mars. If the Mar tians are angry about it, and want their moon back, Case will tell them funny story and put them in good humor. And, unlike many scientists, he seems able to speak almost anybody's lan- guage. .
 Of course I don't know whether there are living beings on Mars or not" he said. Nobody knows. Further more, nobody whether, if there is life on the planet, it has evolved to point at which communication would be pos sible. But it doesn't seems reasonable to believe that the infinitesimal earth should be the. only house of life in the infinite universe. It is our job, as scientists, to reach any possible mechan- ical means of communication this has been accomplished. If there are beings on Mars as intelligent and com '