Evening star., 1933-12-15
RESEARCH MONEY
VOTED. BY BOARD
Carnegie Trustees Will Spend
$1,549, 900 for Work
Next Year. =
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.

sA0 OAiC cAItlddl luCC1ulS VA lliC lIuoeCCo
I OF the Carnegie Institution of Wash
ington this morning
Ellhu Root was elected chairman OF
the board Henry S. Pritchett of New
York vice chairman and Frederic A.
Delano of Washington secretary.
Frank B. Jewett, vice president of the
American Telephone 8y. Telegraph Co.,
and Roswell Miller. son-in-law of An
drew Carnegie and professor at New
board of trustees.
Reports to date of the world coSmic
ray survey, in which approximately 10
physicists have gathered data at 100
stations scattered all over the earth,
were presented.
This program supported by the in
stitution, is probably the most ambitious
effort ever made to solve mystery of
nature by attacking it on all fronts,
vet the exact nature and origin of the
mysterious particles of matter or of
light bombarding the earth from outer
space with such force that some OF
them will go through a foot of lead
remains debatable.
Significance Stressed.
The significance of these rays was
brought out in the report on his work
by DR.. Robert A. Millikan of the Cali
>, fornia Institute of Technology-one of
/, the leaders of the Carnegie attack on
the problem-that "the total radiant
energy in the universe existing in the
form of cosmic rays is from 80 to 300
+ times that existing in all other forms OF
! radiant energy combined" The amount
of this received by the earth is 'ap-
proximately half the total energy COM
ing in from sthe stars"
to ~
: made by its director, DR.. Arthur H.
) Compton of the University of Chicago,
: who stressed that his findings were
: tending strongly to validate the weird
hypothesis advanced by Able Georges
LIE Maitre of Catholic University that
the mysterious rays are essentially
flying sparks from the explosion OF
primeval atom about two billion years
ago. which brought about the existence
of the entire universe.
Two Kinds of Rays.
The reports are bringing out clearly,
DR.. Compton said, that there are two
kinds of cosmic rays. One kind consists
of charged particles" probably cleo
irons. Most of them are negatively
charged. This is shown that they in
crease toward the north and south,
which shows that they are attracted by
the magnetic field of the earth.
The puzzling feature has been, DR..
Compton reported, that, despite this
variation in intensity with geographical
location, there is no exact correspond
ence between geographical or magnetic
latitude and this intensity. They do,
however, vary according to the geomag-
netic latitude-or the magnetic field OF
the earth in space.
1T would appear" DR.. Compton
says, ''that the only possible interpreta-
ton of the dependence OF the cosmlc
rays on the earth's mean magnetic field
is that a considerable portion of these
rays consists of electrically charged
particles which approach the earth
from great distances. That they come
from distances large compared with
the thickness of tie atmosphere fol-
lows from the fact that it is the earthS
average magnetic field rather than the
local field which determines their in
tenSity.
Existence Assumed.
'But in order TO fit the observed in
tensitieS it is necessary to assume the
existence of a large component of the
cosmic rays which is not appreciably af-
fected by the earths magnetic field.
This component represents about 85
per cent of the rays at sea level, and is
therefore the chief part of the cosmic
rays as ordinarily measured, though
probably not the major part out in
space. These rays, unaffected by the
earth's magnetic field. would seem to
be either phoJons ligbr waves or some
other electrically neutral particles
whose nature remains to be deter
mined"
Both components of the cosmic radi-
alton, according to Or. Compton's in
depreciation of the evidence gathered
from the survey. originate in regions
milky way galaxy o. stars itself, as
would be anticipated from the Le-
Maitre hypothesis.
New Cosmic Ray Meter.
Among the accomplishments re-
mic ray meter which will measure the
intensity of The incoming radiation
with hitherto Unappl cached accuracy.
Some of the observers in the world sur
vey have reported mysterious differ
ences in intensity from day to day
which seem like the results of cosmic
pulsationS. The new machine is in
tended to make observations over
long period at one spot to determine
if such fluctuations actually exist or
are the result of experimental error. It
is expected to have one of the meters
at work by New Year.
Another line Of the Carnegie Insti-
tution's attack was directed by DR..
Thomas H. Johnson of the Bartol Re-
search Foundation, Swarthmore, Pa,
and was designed especially to test the
validity OF the corpuscular ray hypoth-
esls OF LeMaitre. Studies have been
carried on in Mexico and Panama and
p. are to be started in PERT. They have
shown to date that less than Is per
cent Of the cosmic radiation consists of
r negatively charged particles. The rest
Is described as primary corpuscular
radiation" fitting into the hypothesis
advanced by both LeMaitre and Comp
ton.
The third line of the attack was
directed by Prof. Millikan, the original
American eXperimenter with cosmic
radiation and who is often credited
with discovering it. Measurements
have been made from Northern Mani
toba to Chile.
The most fundamental discovery on
this line was that of the existence of
q positively charged electron-inde-
pendently discovered last April at
Cambridge University in England.
DR.. Mlllikan also announced the dis
covery by his co-workers of two hith-
erto unknown phenomena of nature
the' "cosmic ray shower and the cosmic
ray burst" He says:
THE impact of the cosmic ray with
a nucleus very frequently, if not gen.
orally, gives rise to positive and mega
tive pair and to trackS emanating gen.
orally, although not always, from a
common center. These tracks may
number anything between 2 and 20.
Such showers are found to. represent
very considerable portion of the
results of primary encounters with
nuclei. The nature of the encounters
which give rise to these showers is
still unknown.
"Cosmic Ray Bursts"
There is another phenomenon known