The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1929-05-17


raids over the enemy lines without
fear of infiammabIe bullets.
And il was the training of spec
troscope on huge flame on the rim
Of the sun during an eclipse that had
drst revealed this element.
Thrills in Astronomy.
Romance? Astronomy offers more
thrills TO the, alert human mind than
all the fiction in the Library of Con-
gress could provide!
Recently millions of people listened
in on the election speeches and re-
turns, and marveled once more at the
wonders of radio. But they little
dreamed that a patient Danish as
tronOmer had done the pioneer work
which released Bells telephone from
the bondage of wires and made the
ether of space its servant.
When Roemer found that eclipses
of the moons of Jupiter occurred 16
minutes earlier when Jupiter and the
earth were on the same side of the
sun than when on opposite sides, he
deduced that light was not instanta-
neous, but travelled at about $4,000
miles a second.
Clerk Maxwell concluded that light,
to travel at such velocity, must be
electromagnetic, and that there must
be other wave lengths than those
which register on the human eye.
Hertz detected these hypothetical
waves. Marconi harnessed them to sig
mailing, and Pupin made them the bur-
den bearers of sound Vacuum tubes
can now take the infinitesimal bit of
energy these waves possess after
spanning a cOntinent-a bit of energy
no greater than a tiny fraction Of
that expended by fly in crawling up
a window pane-and. stepping them
up" and simplifying them, make them
capable of producing a room-fIling
sound.
Here is an inkling of a solution of
the problem Of power sources after
coal and oil supplies are gone. Study
ing Sirius, the gay Dog Star. and his
less brilliant companion, astronomers
have found indications that this satel-
lite of the Dog Star has nearly as
much mass as the sun, although it is
only a little larger than the earth.
If that be true, then there are
states of matter of which man never
dreamed before. On that basis this
dark star would be $4,000 times as
heavy as the same bulk of water. In
other words. a pint of the material
composing that star would weigh %
tons.
The world is looking for a good con-
ductor of electricity that will enable
industry to transmit power long dis
tances without undue loss Of energy.
1t is possible that this new under
standing of the constitution of mat
ter might lead to the open door of a
new and better conductor to take the
place of the diminishing supply of
copper in the transmission of cleo
trical power. Should such a conduc-
tor be found. then the melting SHOWS
of the Rockies and the Andes. of the
Alps and the Himalayas, might turn
the wheels of the worlds industries,
light the lamps of its homes. and pro-
duce all the fires of its kitchen ranges
and sitting-reom freplaces.
The astronomer and the physicisl
have pooled their forces in cross-ex-
aiming the atom. In the test tubes
of the laboratory and the cOsmic
crucibles of the skies, they are at
lacking it with X-rays, spectroscopes,
and other instruments of atomic tor
ture. to make ii surrender the secret
it has withheld from humanity for
so long.
When Madame Curie discovered ra-
dunn and ROntgen produced the
X-ray. they gave the world an inkIing
of the unheard-of powers that dwell
within these ininitesimal solar sys-
tens: and with inconceivably small
amounts Of this power the physicist
is bombarding the atoms TO break
them up. while the astronomer is
studying the forces that affect them
in the sun and the fixed stars.
The radium atom tells the physicist
and the astronomer that atoms ex-
plade just as molecules do, only with
infinitely more power.
The fastest explosion that man has
ever been able TO produce has been
at the rate of about 200 yards a sec
Ond. The radium atom. in its disin-
tegration. hurIs its fragments al the
rate of 1000 miles second. nearly
5000 times as fast as the fastest
known molecular explosion
Will the physicist. with his super
powered electric furnace. and the as
tronomer. with his flaming stars.
working hand in hand and often. as
unit. be able to wrest the atoms
secrets from il?