MODERN SCIENCE.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 443, 27 February 1909, Page 10

MODERN SCIENCE.

■v. ■: .qvssriom to; be solved. ■ • ?**■&■ Si , a!*4ys a lucid writer on scientific subjects,'writes-in the "Observer" S n . '? ( ?! a 6 Scientinc'Questidns Still to be . Solved.' -■,■■'.' ■'"':■' ■"Lebiii Vitk oris cf'tlie simplest things'-tho: speed, of light,", lie says, f 'Bvtt that, aoincdnd frill Say, we all know. I'iv bably that, is\rcasdhably correct. What: is hot qUitb Certain, hfewdvdr, is whether all ■ light travels at the sa'tHe speed. '.•'-' "There'aro other problems' conected ;witli tho other..;.As the.earth travels through the Universe do'ea it make for itself a way through tho ether, like an aeroplane flying through art atn'tdsphdre, or does thd interpenetrating, ether travel. aldng. with it?. Sif Oliver Lodge has pictured all.matter as a.huge sponge, in which the ultimate' particles coin= posing it. are. as: far apart relatively as are tho Stars from:ond. andtherj Slid. with, that corioeptioh in. view: wo-can imagine the earth travelling through the ether without making any stir in its wakd. But it is not quite dertain. whether this is :the, casdj dad for tears past physicists like TrdUtdnj fiahkine, Michelson, ahd Motley, have. beeh making experiments to see "whether it-is, pds'sible to detect', any .drift, in the' mysterious ether. :•' .''All these experiments, thdugh they have in.some.instances bodn of an almost incredible liccuraoy, have had merely negative results. ■They hav9 neither proved nor disproved! the existencd-'of. the ether. ; It almost, sdemS, says Sir. Oliver Lodge, as if ;riature lia'd nieahfr. Us hot; to. detect the 'etheNrift"—so great is tho, ingenuity she had exercised in defeating all ; human .devices to solvo .this Unsolved problen),.'"..;. ~;■• .',. ■'..'. /."'■' "While the structure, and the properties of the ether still elude observation and re- . main mere mathematical ideas, tha 9ub3tflllco of matter whidh is latent in it:and the nature of' tho energy which', is rooted in. it alike present problems which) if nbt insoluble, are yet. hard to solve., According.to theory,.the atom of matter may consist of a universe Of eledtrdns dr'etheridtts,'- which are mere twists in tho ether. ■'■_". "When radium was discovered somo years ago, .the physicists _ believed that: herd /was a, filial example of matter'6f frhioli the'atoms were breaking .down aiid were forming new combinations. These new combinations might bo new elements. 'But now discovery .Seems In part arrested. Sir : William Ramsay... has. hinted the possibility that tiot only may radium Itself be bi'estcing down, but that the irenieridduS energy it releases lii the process may start a 'similar breakup .in the.neighbouring atdms' ,of dthdr elehieiits>in contact with it. From this to the- theories enunciated by Sir G*org6 Dal'wjh and Le Bran, that 'the elements ,ard 'evolved from ono . another ahd that all elements' are subject to decay and. degradation into other elements, is but the step between, deittdnstratidh ahd theory. But.it is a very long step, dr it seems sd. :• ' . ■ | "Perhaps, hdwever, wo are .on the' brink i of the dedisive experiment; and even this i year we may find a nioro positive proof than I hitherto has beeri acoeptcd that thd elements' I Can bo transmuted." . ■:•- I