Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1924-05-20

WYE know that chemistry plays
Wv important part in modern indus
try. We know that certain chemical
substances in minute amount such as the
hormones that naturally exist in our bodies
and the drugs that we unnaturally put into
our bodies, have an effect upon our health
and temperament. L wonder if we cannot
go farther and inquire if our metaphysical
notions may not also be traced back to
chemical causes. How, for instance, do we
get our abstract ideas of space and time
which form the framework Of the external
world?
Our concept of space seems to be founded
primarily upon the movement of our mus
cles. 1t requires more of effort to reach
yard than to reach a foot We
get more tired in walking two miles
than in walking one. Of course, it
does. not always require the same effort to
cover a given distance with the arm or by
the legs, but the relation is much more
than the data given by the sense of sight
where objects change their shape and size
quickly as we or they move about, in a way
that must be most perpleXing to a baby
Even yet we may be deceived by our eyes
and mistake a bush on the next hill for
tree on the horizon. Our sense for sound
is still more unreliable. SO we Fall back
for substantiation and yerifiCatiOn of extent
and distance on some sort of muscular eX-
Of fatigue. 1t is much the same with our
sense of the lapse of time. Two hours
work seems longer than one. Though time
seems to go faster or slower, depending on
whether our employment is enjoyable or
distaSteful, yet we average it up iT the long
run as we do our spatial estimates, and
consider space and time effectively as con-
slant.
Now what IS the cause of the feeling Of
fatigue on which we base our ideas of ex-
tension and duration? 1t is evidently de-
pendent in some way upon the accumulation
of the waste products of muscular exertion,
such as Tactic acid Whenever we exercise
a muscle Tactic acid is produced in proper
ton to the exertion and when the Tactic
acid is made more rapidly than it be
carried off by the blood and consumed we
get the sensation of fatigue. SO meas
ure of space is somewhat dependent upon
the amount Of Tactic acid in the body
II this argument does not convince the
reader, | may approach it in another way
Our only knowledge Of space comes from
our exploration of it by movements of limbs
or body: A spherical and stationary amoeba
a mere drop of jelly, cannot be considered
as having any conception of spatial extent
When little Tactic acid accumulates on the
surface of the amoeba the protOplasmic gran
ules at that point absorb water from other
parts of the organism by inhibition. This
produces pseudo-pOdium, or eXtempore
limb with which the amOeba may reach
out or propel itself along. When the Tactic
acid vanishes surface tension oyercomes the
inhibition and the organism resumes its
resting sperical form. According to this
theory the origin of limbs and of move
ments comes from an accumulation Of lac
tic acid
1t seems to me. then. that there is a
chain of casual connection between Tactic
acid formation and our conception OF space
and time. If so, it means that our meta
physics has a chemical foundation; that
geometry is essentially a branch Of chem
istry; that astronomy likewise depends on
chemistry; that Einstein's theory OF a four
/ dimenslonaI time-space continuum has its
origin in deficient oxygen to keep down the
Tactic acid In short, We have a Tactic acid
theory Of the universe, @. E. D.-Science
Service.
FRISCO HAS FEWEST THUNDERSTORMS
According to twenty-year records COM
piled by w. HAAleXander. Of the United
States weather bureau, San Francisco has
fewer thunderstorms than any other inhab-
tied place in the United States. Only thir-
ty-one thunderstOrms occurred in the Pa
cific coast city in the years 1904 TO 1928,
inclusive.
The place with the most thunderstorms is