New Britain Herald Newspaper, December 18, 1926, Page 9

RAYS ARE OBJECTS STUDY AMONG OF WORLD-WIDE LEADING SCIENTISTS Professor-Millikan’s Studies Take Him Away Down to South America to Secluded Lake in Andes ‘Washington, D. C., Dec. 17—Geo- graphy plays its part in the advance of pure sclence, according to a bul- letin from the Washington, D. C., headquarters of .e National Geo- graphic Society. “A quest for an ideal spot in which to study the sun's heat rays led Dr. C. G. Abbot, leader of a Na- tional Geographic Soclety Expedition cooperating with the Smithsonian Institution, over extensive areas in the Eastern hemisphere a few months ago before he selected what appears to be the best possible location, on a dry mountain top in Southwest Africa. Tnterested in Rays . *“Redeptly, when it was desired to -atudy a more elusive type ot radio- , tion, the Cosmic or Millikan ray, Professor Millikan found it neces- sary to travel to a crystal lake in !I\o high Bolivian Andes; and Pro- iffessor Michelson in studying the 7 speed of light carried on experi- ments near Mt. Wilson, California. “It is noteworthy that in all of ! these expeditions the object was to "istudy radiant energy; but, for that patter, rays of various kinds and ‘%heir effects have almost monopo- jNized the attention of physicists dur- dng the last few yeary; and it is in this fleld that the most striking dis- coverfes and advances . have been made by scienée. What Are Rays? ““What are rays that lead serious scientists to remote parts of. the earth and absorb the attention of scores of others in laboratorles throughout the civilized world? “A little more than a gneration ‘ago it not only would have been difi- cult to give a broad definition of rays,"but it would have been almost imposible to bring to the mind of a layman any conception of the vari- ous kins and the things they do. Light an. heat ¢ stituted practic- ally the only rays known at that time even to scientists. “Today the situation is far differ- ‘ent. In thirty-five years rays pre ously unknown ha: become the ;Band-maidens of civilization. They speed commerce and - intercourse. «They are thoe bencficent helpers of physicians, surgeons, and dentists. !They are the invaluable agents of #cientists In probing for new truths. [They are even {he playfellows of -¢hildren. We Use Rays Dally “We scek frchnical facts about rays today, because we know many things about their ordinary behavior. Any evening we can sit in our homes and be amused or in- structed by one kind of ray—radio or Hertzian waves—as they bring voices or music to us over distances ;of hundreds or even thousands of miles. We know that these rays or | aves reach us in a fraction of a Recond, however, far away their point of origin; and we know that .ga_v scorn , our one and steel, coming to an an itenna inside our rooms as unerring- 4y as to an aerial outside. “Many of us h had X-ray pho- fographs taken of teeth or' some other part of our bodies, and know that these rays can plunge through H Frigidaire Electric Refrigeration of every deseription Electric Appliances BARRY & BAMFORTH Phone 2504 so | walls of ‘brick;and | flesh and bone, wood or cloth, leav- ing on photographic plates records of things that eyes could never see. All of us are famillar, of course, with the streams of light rays that flood our rcoms when we turn a switch, and with the h:at rays that flow from our fireplaces and radi- ators. Lately sclence has introduced us—or reintrod ‘ed us to less usual rays that may be our familiar ser- vants tomorrow. ¢ - gamma-rays of radium, tie Cosmic or Millikan rays, the so-called cathode or beta-rays of the Coolidge tube, and the so-called alpha-rays of .dium. “Rays may be described broadly though not very satisfactorily as carriers of energy in straight lines from a given source through ‘empty’ space. They may radiate from their source in all directions like pins stuck into a ball, or by artificial means they may be gathered into beams Illke those of light thrown out by an automobile headlight or like. beams of heat thrown out by |a bowl-s!iped electric household heater, Two Groups of Rays with numerous and diverse members. | There are two groups: the true rays, | and those with not quite so valid | 1a claim to the family name. What mlght be ca'ed the true rays are often spoken of as ‘waves,’-for the |most_ge. erally accepted theory of ‘tlmlr nature is the wave theory. They are supposed to be waves in the ether, the ‘substance’ that we assume fills ‘empty’ space between the planet and the stars—the same | ‘substance’ that fills a vacuum tube when all the air and other gases ‘ha\e been pumped out. These waves |are thought to be like the widening waves made by a pebble dropped In- to water, first a crest then a hol-| {low, then anot™ r crcst, and so on. They are measured from crest to crest. The crest is supposed to be light, the hollow, darkness; but they move so rapMly that the light seems continuous. | “This narrower definition which \emphasizes the supposed wave form fails to include what are often loosely spoken of as ‘rays’: the ca- |thode rays of the Coolidge tube and Ithe alpha and Leta rays of radium. | “Consider :st the true rays or |supposed ~ther waves. They are |blood relations because they move with the same velocity, the speed of \light, -approximately 186,000 miles each second. The other ‘rays’ have {varying speeds. The true rays, how- |ever, although they travel with the |same speed, differ in their wave lengths and therefore in the fre- | quence of their vibrations. In this lthey are like the waves of sound ‘\\,hll‘h travel through the alr. Al- though sound waves travel;at the same speed they may range from slowly vibrating low sounds to rapid- rating high sounds. Because of analogy the great gamut that ys'run may be considered to be l(ke the keyboard of a gigantie pi- ano on which they are grouped in |octaves. The Rays By Which We See | “Near the middle of this imagin- ary keyboard is the octave we know 19 MAIN STREET “The’ ray family is a large one, | NEW BRITAIN DAILY HERZLD, best, that of the visible light rays. These rays bathe .is continually by day from the sun and by night from electric and other lights. As we go from colored light, with the shortest light waves, toward the ‘bass’ end of the keyboard, these rays have longer and longer wave lengths to the red rays, the longest that will illuminate an object and so make it visible. * “The next longer waves and all| others beyond them toward the ‘bass’ | are invisible. Those in the octaves closest to visible light make them- selves known by, their heat; we can feel them radiating from any hot body. Next come the relatively short Hertzlan waves for which few uses have been found. The lengths of Hertzlan waves vary from slightly more than the thickness of a sheet of paper to lengths of many miles. When Hertzian ‘aves of 100 meters | or more encouptered on the 'key-| {boara’ most widely used radio waves. Invisible Rays “Going back to our starting point, the light octave, and tracing rays | along our ‘keyboard,’ ward the treble end, we again enter a world of invisible rays. The first of these covering about five octaves, are the ultra-violet rays. Nearly an octave of these reach us from the sun. These sun rays, shorter than | those of violet light, do not illimin- ate objects to our eyes, but they make their existence known by tan- ining and frecklink our skin and by ‘produclng photograghic and chemi- cal changes. These waves are so short that it takes from 64,000 to | 100,000 of them to make an inch. “Beyond the ‘natural’ ultra-violet waves that reach us from the sun— still toward the treble end of the scale—are several octaves of other (artificially produced) ultra-violet | waves. These are radlated when {substances are brought to very | | great heat. There are more than a ! million and a quarter of these! ‘l)\orle(t ultra-violet rays to the. |inch. They merge into and even |overlap the next group, the well- | |known artificially produced X-ravs. 'Thu! a short ultra-violet ray s the | |same as a long X-ray, and vice ver- |sa. X-rays were for a long time the | |shortest rays known to exist. It ]!akes more than 125 millions of the | we enter the realm of the| to make an inch. These exceedingly {short rays are not stopped by ordi- | nary materials but plunge inte eor| [through them =0 that we may make | photographs through boards and other objects. A fraction of an inch | [of lead does not stop them, how lever. The Shortest Known Rays | “The discovery of radium brought | to light still shorter and more pene- | trating rays given off by that m {led ‘naturally produced’ X-rays, but | |they have been given the distinctive | {name, gamma-rays. Of the shortest | gamma-rays, it takes more than 4 |billions to make an inch. Gamma- | rays will plunge through seven or | eight inches of stopped. Denetrate is supposed to be that the |waves are so short in comparison {with the molecules of matter and the |distances between the molecules, that | |they pass through the space |a breeze passes through a |screen. But many thickenes of screens will stop a breeze, and so la sufficient thickness of matter will | Eureka Yacuum Cleaner Electric Fixtures stop even the ! parently not from the sun. This ray ar 1t |that is why I came here |charge of my case. this time to- |+ {sterious element. These may be cal- | | SATURDAY, DE CEMBER 18, 1926. shortest rays. “Until 192" the gamma-rays dium were the shortest rays known, but in that year Professor Millikan discovered the Cosmic or Millikan ray, a natural ray coming to the carth from outside space but ap- is almost iuconceivably short. would require mc -~ than 630 billio of them to make one inch. Th will pass through more than six fect of lead before being stopped.” ORMISTON STILL MAN OF MYSTERY ... (Continued from First Page) that I have nothing td fear and to take Why, I'm not even sure that I will need an at- torney here. I haven't made up my mind on that point yet. “Seriously there were three things hich influenced me to return to Los Angeles and find out what was go- ing on here regarding me. “First of all was my own decision ed, s - come to I that this was the place for me arn what it is all You know Chicago is 2,000 m Los Angeles and v taking ferent from th tance. know all about the case aga to have someone here gi plausible reason why I have beer 1 with crime. District Atto ney Asa Keyes, in my opinion, wan me here, well, here I am.” ston sald he had taken the Chicago to t as a second consideration. “I do not think for a minute that I could not have waged a winning st extracdition had T chose in in Chicago and le; the move to bring me )1rr~. ed. “But this would have fight to renm 0ppos bee; sut the public naturally followed ly because of the ¢ given to it and myself. He's Fugitive to from ce is lau never had that stat t 1 matter of August 1, district attorney or his rep. hable. I ha record, and ha in the office Edward H. (GIFTS of FURNITURE of TOYLAND IS WAITING / |shorter artificially produced X-rays.| [ lead before being |8 | “The reason that the shorter rays | 4 BRING THE KIDDIES Santa Claus has made Erickson & Carlson the headquarters for better toys. Hundreds of beautiful and practical toys for hoys and girls. Most reasona Toys, what a jolly world of Toys, bly priced too. Toys, See them. TOYS for BOYS POOL TABLES ROCKING HORSES DESK SETS AUTOMOBILES SLEDS SCOOTERS WAGONS WHEEL BARROWS TOYS for GIRLS CARRIAGES FURNITURE SETS DRESSERS ]’FDS ! ROCKING CHAIRS TAYLOR TOTS SLACKBOARDS VELOCIPEDES THIS STORE WILL BE OPEN EVERY NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS ERICKSON & CARLSON 377 Main Street out. miles sometbing here appears dif- I want to news- factory not only to the this wide and never will. s that I ofiered to b |8 t the third in- | him to re- | e counsel of [slon Mr. Coles wagered the Indlan ised | that he could not was obtained. Sitting Bull refused to autograph his likeness and after much persua- even sign his *|own name. At this the Chief took “entirely | resentment, and did write his name, e me ! keegan, IlL, vspaperman who he startle stion: I t his companion ihe nia. Library Has Signed Photo of Sitting Bull w —| “au- | Sitting whose ssacred General Custer and Tenn., Dec. 18 nessee has in tis library phed” photograph of oux Indian Chief, ashville, an ss of being a fugitive | It was sent to Mr. V win A. Col together with a 1 ville fri kota, 1 tograpl b 1 Fort Yates, I ning how the ngerous for the entire family The name ERICKSON & CARLSON is the hall mark of Good Furniture, What better time than Christmas to righten up the home with Furniture? A new Living An occasional Table 1ere, a Desk or Chair there—these are asting gifts that are inexpensive at GOOD FURNITURE! Room Suite! Erickson & Carlson’s. CEDAR CHESTS $11.50 to $65.00 eft Chicago last Tues- | with the had on him at Harrisburg. | He explained that it was during a kfast conversation at Waukegan by “Let's go to Califor- au- chief | Main street. tting Bull,” in lead pencil on a strip of brown paper. Jr. C later pasted the strip bearing signature under the picture, “He after much persuasion wrote | this for us this evening,” wrote Mr. oles. “The old cuss has been sit- | ng in my chair in the office all day, and I don't dare ask him to he give it up. He says white man waits | on Sioux.” ! City Items salted Bldg. Cynthia sweet chocolat nuts. Soda Shoppe, Raphael —advt. Christmas cards at Hall's, Arch St. | —advt. Uvr\s(m’x' cards at Hall’s, Arch St. Indian trader, ter to his Nash- ting of Rev. W. A. 0. H, Tuesday evening at Judd’s hall on GLASSES MAKE AN APPRECIATED CHRISTMAS GIFT A Quality Optical Service HENRY F. REDDELL Optometrist 99 W. Mam St. Phone 1185, E :f ; K4 I I ? ORIENTAL RUGS just received mnother shipment rcal hand woven Persian Rugs D.M. B[NJAMIN 67 E. Main St. appreciated. gestions. GATELEG TABLES $22.50 to $40 $22. MIRRORS $10 to $27 PlF(‘E SUITE SPINET DESKS $22.50 to $40 Consists of — Large Divan Wing and Club Chair SEWING CABINETS .40 to $22.50 Give Furniture this year and know that you are giving a gift that will be Five floors of gift sug- Your shopping will be a mutual pleasure. ‘May we suggest:— ODD CHAIRS $13.50 to $70 TEA WAGONS $22.50 to $35 lee the Family a Living Room Suite Handsome Velour Covering Fine construction; the utmost in value. OCCASIONAL TABLES $27 to $40 A RELIABLE FURNITURE STORE (New Britain) SMOKERS $6 to $18 Telephone 1477