RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 33, 2 November 1933, Page 10

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events LOCAL AND GENERAL

(Bj

Kickshaws.)

The Governor of Rotary believes that the future of New Zealand Is in the land. More pessimistic people are emphatic that it is in the air. t ‘ * Proposals are said to be afoot in America to amalgamate the Army and the Navy. This is considered to fie a clever move to ensure the best possible football team. • * • If we are to believe the specialists, a new-born infapt is unable to think. Yet it is wise enough to yell the moment it sees what kind of a world it U in. ■ % » • • “Scientist," Wellington, writes “Through your column could you tell me if the speed of light is altered by travelling through the atmosphere? What is the speed of light when it goes through the atmosphere?” Yes, it is altered slightly. If we take ,186,000 miles per second as the speed in a vacuum the speed in air is roughly 40 miles a second less. —Kickshaws. The unusual discovery in America, reported in the news recently, of a man who is one hundred per cent, colour blind and sees everything a drab grey, is yet another instance of the topsyturvy habits of Nature. It is suspected that certain flies and possibly dragon flies are also colour blind. All the higher animals, on the other hand, can distinguish colour. Whether bees distinguish one colour from another is Still controversial, but bees certainly are not blind to various 'Shades of colour. In the world of music there are people who are nearly one hundred per cent, tone blind. Tone perception in music, it is thought, is connected with, the complicated resonating mechanism in our inner ears. What causes us to perceive colour, on lhe other hand, is so little understood that it is still a matter for acute controversy. Nobody really knows why we see at all or understands the fundamental mechanism'that makes this magle possible.

Possibly the most curious cages of topsy-turviness in human beings -ire those people who for some curious reason always write backwards. These people write backwards with' the fluency that the rest of us spite forwards. In order to read their writing, in some cases it is necessary to use a mirror, unless, like master printers, life-long association with backward print makes the art second nature, Some people, in addition to writing backward, also draw things upside down. This latter failing is comprehensible when we realise that the lens mechanism of the eye registers everything upside down and the brain has to right it. After all, upside down and right side up are only conventions. For all we know, what we think is right side up may really be upside down, because if thingsXe normally presented to the brain upside down, surely upside down is really the right way up. At any.rate, one individual, besides writing everything upside down, actually saw everything upside down owing to the brain omitting to rectify matters. Just how difficult a game of golf must be in that case-can only;be realised by standing on one’s head to drive.

The New Zealand lecturer who recently remarked that there was nothing new in music might well have extended his assertion to include everything else. In the old Greek legends we have, for example, an anticipation of the modern tank in the story of the giant man of bronze that was made by Daedalus. < Fable also tells how this same Daedalus made the first aeroplane and escaped his foes. Roger Bacon in 1214 foresaw the coming ot balloons. Lunardi’s oar-propelled balloon of the ISth century possibly anticipated the airship. The Italian writer, Strada, born in 1572, gives a very good description of a radio set which enabled people to communicate over long distances. He even went so far as to mention tuning dials. One has only to read "The Tempest” to see that Shakespeare had also anticipated radio broadcasting. If anything, he was ahead of modern times, for Prospero by liiS magic arts was able to send out the sounds of sWeet music, a tiling that rarely occurs to-day, if oue judges by letters to the editor.

If one troubles to investigate the matter, it becomes more and more apparent that practically every scheme that the civilised world has adopted nss been tried out before, or at least moot- • ed. Socialism, for example, was applied long ago in a practical manner bv almost every savage tribe in the world. The Chinese investigated the possibilities of managed currency when our ancestors were running about Britain covered with woad- Gunpowder was also used by the Chinese, and subsequently forgotten, several centuries before it came to the Western world, which at the time was practically uncivilised. The old Norsemen discovered America before Columbus was born. Printing had been tried out bv at least one oriental nation long fore the days of Caxton. Bank notes were used 5000 years ago. Cheques, if not quite.the same as modern ones, had been used by wealthy Indians since time immemorial as a means of paying debts. Admittedly, the cheque usually stated in code “Pay this dog the sum mentioned below” and then broke away into general news, but the ‘dog on cashing his letter received his money.

Concerning towns that have gone ahead, “R.H.F.” writes" About 550 A.D the Goths cut the aqueducts of Rome, causing marshes, and Rome never really recovered from it until Mussolini took charge in 1922. In 1900 the population of Rome was about 526 000; now it is about a million. Another town that has gone ahead is Reykjavik. Iceland. In 1899 it had 3000 people, and no roads. In 1929 it had 26,000 people, roads, and 000 motor-cars.”

"Could you please inform ine through your column whether Louis N. Parker, famous English playwright of ‘Disraeli’ and ’Joseph and His Brethren fame, died lately in London?” writes “A.E.S.” “I seem to remember reading of ins death, but am not too clear about U Louis N. Parker is still alive.—Kickshaws.

Never a daisy that grows but a mystery guldeth the growing; Never a river that flows but a majesty sceptres the flowing; Never a Shakespeare that soared but a-stronger than he did enfold him; Nor ever a prophet foretells but o mightier seer hath foretold him. -Colonel Richard Rcalf.