Evening star., 1938-07-30
OF STARS,
MEN AND ATOMS
Notebook of Science Prosress
in Field, Laboratory
and Study.
By THOMAS X. HENRY.

Yale University astronomer, worked on
one mathematical problem-the deter
mination Of the motions OF the. moon
according to the Newtonian theory of
gravitation.
1t was an extraordinarily difficult
problem. The moon was being pulled
and pushed in half dozen different
directions. The earth was pulling it.
The sun was pulling it. The different
planets were pulling it. The resultant
of all these pulls determined its path.
If this resultant could be calculated
correctly the position of the earths
satellite at any particular instant at
any time in the future could be pre-
dicted within the split second.
For 200 years astronomers struggled
with the problem. 1t required an enor-
nous amount of intricate calculation.
DR.. Brown spent nearly all his time on
it. Now an eminent mathematician and
astronomer is not a certified public ac-
countant. He is just as likely to make
mistakes in arithmetic as anybody else.
So the results Of his work have just
been checked at Columbia University
with six automatic computing machines,
each as large as a piano. These ma
chimes duplicated the 80 years work in
2 years. No errors were found in the
original calculations. These showed
that the gravitation formulae had been
applied correctly to the lunar motions
Henceforth the path Of the moon may
be considered mathematically fixed.
The machines necessary for this as
Economical calculation were invented by
Prof. Wallace j. Eckert, Columbia
mathematician. They are based on the
punched card method of tabulation, first
devised by Herman Hollerith in COM
piling the United States census Of 1890,
and without which such prodigious CAL
culated jobs as were involved in the
Agricultural Adjustment Administration
and the Social Security programs would
have been impossible Holes represent
ing mathematical figures are fed into
tabulating machines at the rate of 1000
to 5000 an hour. The cards move from
the sorting machine to other machines
which add, subtract and multiply by
means of electrical contacts. More than
250000 such cards were used in the
work on the moon.
The mathematics of checking the lun-
ar theory consists of substituting into
differential equations the harmonic Sc
ries which represent co-ordinates. The
series expression for each coordinate
consists of about 500 terms. each Of 10
significant figures The principal part
of the machine computation consists of
multiplying such series together in
pairs.
A synergistic action between sulfanila-
mide and meningococcic serum, demon
strated on mice, is reported by the Ma
tional Institute of Health.
This means that when both are given
together in cases of spinal meningitis
the curative effect is greater than that
OF either administered alone. In some
meningitis cases, reports DR.. Sara E.
Branham in the current Public Health
Reports, the sulfanilamide seems to work
better and in others the serum. When
the combined action of the drug and
serum was tested in mice, she says, sit
was found that with all strains of men
ingococci that were tested in mice the
combination was far more effective than
either alone. The curative action was
more than could be accounted for by the
sum of the effects of the two agents.
mo reports Of clinical cases treated
with both drug and serum have been
published, but such treatment is being
used in several places. The author has
seen at least Is cases and has been told
Of others in which this combined therapy
has been employed and the results have
been very promising. Among the Is
cases there was one death. The pa
tient was 50-year-old man with heart
complications, who was admitted to the
hospital in a coma from which he was
never aroused.
Before allowing ourselves to become
too enthusiastic about the clinical use
Of this combined drug and serum therapy
We must remember that this was not an
epidemic period and that relatively mild
cases would be expected. Also with the
exception of the one fatal case, the pa
tients receiving this treatment were in
a decidedly favorable age group-that
of from II to 25 years"
4 X X X
approximately 100000 students in
American colleges-nearly Is per cent
of the entire enrollment-have serious
eye defects which handicap their studies,
it is reported by the Eye Health Com
mittee of the American Student Health
Association.
The report urges full opthalmic ex-
animation for all students. The princi-
pal defects reported are astigmatism,
-sightedness and lack of eye co-ordin-
alton. 1t was found that students enter
college with twice as many visual de-
fects as their contemporaries who go
from high school into industry. One in
six entering with presumably good vision
will need glasses or treatment for grad
uation, and one in eleven will suffer a
serious loss in vision.