Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-07-29
Earth Is Slowing Down
Continued from First Page

Continued from First Page.)
/ 10 the moons center was e.le4 miles
/ and the distance from the earth's sur
face to the moons surface only 5,23f
miles
/ Yes. continues Moulton, our month
/ has always been increasing. but 1t can
! never pass beyond AT of our present
/ days, because at that period one day
/ viii equal month and the system viii
/ move as rigid body.
| Well, what Is the energy of the
earth's rotation. II 1t is being changed
willy nilly. with the movements of the
tides? 1t is more than will be devel-
oped by Niagara Falls in million
million years.
In the light of all this science and
! theory. our conception of our earthly
! spheroid Is better defined but still not
changed basically from that held by
some Of the earliest scientific observers
Calico. Copernicus and AustarchuS
knew that the earth wobbled. And
Leonardo da Vinci than whom there
Is no greater in art or science, had
definite ideas on the INCONSISTENCY" OF
the earth
We might go into the realm of hui
man drama to get synonym for our
earth and appropriately call 1t "Fal-
staff" brawling. tipSy maudlin buff
foon who swaggers through coSmic
space. now wiggly now wobhly but
ever inconstant, A hopeless inebriate,
once swift in its pace, but now effec-
tually slowed down by the sluggish in
fiuence of old age. Lady Earth has
seen better days. days when she scam
pered over race course 5000 miles a
second. Now she has eased down a
little. although she keeps up 80 or
more Of her simultaneous canters. She
fused to prance around the golden sun
In 1900 hours~~that was the length
of the year--and today she crawls over
the same course in 365 days hours 48
minutes and IS seconds. And IN the
next 100000 years she'll slow down a
full second, making II necessary for
watchmakers in Switzerland to install
new machinery for making main springs
that will hoard up that treasured Sec
ond and let you have 1t at will
Now We are in step with progress
in cosmology. Tomorrow We may be
out of step. For such is the rapid
stride of the astronomical sciences these
days that the boundaries of this uni
verse are being pushed farther and
farther revealing what has taken place
bEAlAIAA WAC S1CAACS Va llIllG.
MAN has written records of himself
A'A extending back about 5000 years.
Beyond this Is period of 500. 900 years,
during which he left traces of his exist
elfce. And back of these the fossils of
mans progenitors, who passed before
him down the long stream of evolution
may be traced, perhaps, 10000, 900 900
years All else is yelled.
Consider the phenomena OF light. II
travels around the earth In one-eighth
of second and reaches the sun In
eight minutes. Yet this same light
takes longer to reach some of our stars
than IL has taken for the evolution
Of this planet and its life
An astronomer peeping through one
Of his modern high-powertd telescopes
can see the light that left n star S, 10,
90 and 100 million years ago, And in
all those years this same beam of light
has been streaking through space at
the rate Of l86.330 miles per second!
And the same astronomer goes conf
IDENTIFY about the business of measuring
such vast distances. He has exhausted
ordinary ways of figuring. He now
measures distance III a unit OF time.
the light year The distance travelled
by ray OF light In one year II ex-
pressed in miles would All book with
digits Now. II you can express this
same quantity with the figure /, much
paper and printing ink Is saved. and
your astronomer can express himself
with is and 40 digits,
Each series of observations serves to
impress upon us how vast Is this realm
called the universe. Even at this early
stage. the extent of our universe Is
ineonceivahly vast. Recently, astronu.
mers have uncovered some new stellar
systems similar 10 our own, but Sepa-
rated from each other by vast distances
The old school OF astronomers could
not pierce the realm Of space beyond