The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-08-30
-Dietz on Science
STARS Give ONE
PERSPECTIVE ON
OUR DAILY LIFE
Dietz Uses Grape Seed to
Represent Earth in
Universe Model.
BY DAVID DIETZ
soripps- Howard Science Editor

scripps- Howard Science Editor
One Of my regular readers writes
me a letter. asking that I print
comparison which I frequently use
in lectures TO illustrate the size of
the universe
He is a fine old scholarly gentle
man who has a telescope mounted
in a tiny observatory in his back
yard.
He has been a wise man who has
not allowed the bright lights Of the
city to crowd the light Of the stars
out Of his life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great
American poet and philosopher,
once observed that If a man we're
permitted TO gaze at the stars only
once in his lifetime, he would spend
years preparing for that one Won
derful glimpse Of the night sky with
its golden array Of twinkling stars.
But because the wondrous pano-
rama Of the heavens is spread out
for us every cloudless night, We give
very little thought to it.
A Modern Paradox
The shepherd watching his flock
by night in centuries gone by was
far more familiar with the stars
than most of us are today.
This is one of the paradoxes of
modern life.
The modern astronomer is busy
pushing out the limits of the uni
verse. His telescope reveals to him
stars that must always remain in
visible to the unaided eye. He sees
stars which the ancients did not
know we're in existence.
But while the astronomer has
been extending the limits of the uni
verse, many of us have been re-
stricting the limits Of the universe
for ourselves. In fact, we have
almost crowded the universe out of
our lives.
We have found the lights of the
city so bright that We have lost track
of those marvellous lights which
hang above the city.
One OF Lies treasures
This is unfortunate. For if we
eliminate acquaintance with the
great heavens overhead from our
lives. We have permitted one of life's
highest treasures to slip through our
fingers.
We need a knowledge of the facts
of astronomy. We need il to get a
proper perspective upon life, to un-
derstand the relation of our earth
to the rest of the universe.
Let us imagine, therefore, that we
are going to construct a model of
the universe. CThiS is the COMPARE
son my friend asks for
Let us start with the sun. We
will take a globe, one foot in di-
ameter, and use that to represent
the sun. We will find then that
the proper object to represent the
earth, if we adhere to the same
scale, is a small seed about the size
of a grape seed.
Let us imagine the seed revolv-
ing around the globe in a sort of
fiattened circle at a distance of 100
feet. We then have a model to
scale of the earth revolving around
the sun. The actual distance from
the sun to the earth is 100000
miles. Therefore in our model. 100
feet represents 100000 miles.
Seed for Moon
The moon would be represented
by a seed one-fourth the size of the
grape seed, revolving around it at
a distance of three inches.
Besides our earth there are seven
other planets revolving around the
sun. These would be represented
in our model by objects ranging in
size from one smaller than the
grape seed to one the size of a
cherry.
The one closest to the globe would
be thirty feet from it. The outer
most one would be two-thirds of a
mile away.
Some of these objects would have
smaller ones revolving around them,
for just as our own earth has one
moon, some Of these planets have
more than one moon.
Astronomers call the sun with its
eight planets and their attendant
satellites or moons. the solar system.
Accordingly. the model which we
have just made would be one of the
solar system.
Now suppose We start to put the
rest Of the universe in our model.
Our sun, astronomers have proved,
is nothing more nor less than a star
Every Sun Is Star
II differs in appearance from the
stars, because our earth is so close
to it. To put it the other way
around. every star is a sun. Stars
appear so small because they are so
far away
If We take another globe to rep
resent the nearest star We will find
that II our model of the solar system
is located in New. York We must
place the nearest star in London.
And remember that in our model
100 feet represents $4,000. 900 miles.
The nearest star is twenty-five
trillion miles away.
So far apart are the stars that if
we kept our model to scale, and used
the whole surface of the earth for
it. We would only have room for
three or four stars. and there are
forty billion stars in the galaxy.