RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 169, 13 April 1935, Page 6

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events (By Kickshaws.) Well, it looks as if the new City Council will find a full time job in taking the “wrong” out of Rongotal. ** * \ If it be true, as suggested, that the Germans are hobbled, they should be congratulated on the clever way they have disguised the fact. * * ♦ News of those dust storms iu America seems to indicate that if conditions in America were not so dusty conditions in America would be not so dusty. “The interest in the physical characteristics of Christ, that has been quickened by references in your notes, arising out of Epstein’s recent interpretation has led me to turn up a reference.” says “E.M.H..” “that is contained in one of the writings on character reading by Professor James Coates, Ph.D. It is as follows:—‘Publius Lentulus, in his letter to the Roman Senate, describes Jesus as being of full stature, rather tall, with hair the colour of a chestnut when fully ripe, smooth to the ears, and then curling, and flowing down upon the shoulders; in the midst of the forehead a stream or partition of hair. His beard was of the same colour, and very full, but not long. His eyes grey and clear. His nose and mouth of a form such as no description on earth could represent them. His forehead was without wrinkle or spot; His posture one of gracefulness and symmetry beyond description.’ The foregoing Is apparently an eyewitness’s description of the physical appearance of Christ the Man. What Epstein intends to convey may be quite another thing.” • • » • The fact that a scientist lias succeeded in producing a temperature less than a fraction of a degree above absolute zero does not convey much to the average individual in New Zealand who thinks In terms of Southerly Busters. The truth about cold is that it is a sort of negative thing—an absence of heat. There comes a time, however, when all the heat has been taken from a body. Scientists have been trying to reach these temperatures for many years in order to discover what happens. At 481.4 degrees Fahrenheit of frost all tlie heat has been extracted, and it is argued that there can be no temperature lower than that. This is all based on calculation and it may be that when this temperature is reached something will be discovered to prove that tlys calculations are incorrect, or have left out some factor. At any rate, absolute zero is considered to be the coldest thing possible. Things do not begin to happen at those temperatures. Rather things begin not to Happen. An object at absolute zero contains no energy at all —its atoms have slowed down until it is completely inert. Scientists are very anxious to discover what happens when matter reaches that state. If there be a definite limit to the coldness of things, there does not appear to be any attainable limit to the heat of things. Men work in a gold mine in Brazil in temperatures of 117 degrees, but the temperature span of life is an insignificant fraction of the temperature range. The hottest thing man has produced is a temperature of aU proximately 900,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Nearly one million degrees is really hot stuff. Even Nature would admit that fact. The sun. on its outside is no more than 10,000 degrees. The temperature of most stars is under 14,000 degrees Fahrenheit. These admittedly are outside temperatures. Nature makes man's one million degrees look insignificant when she gets to work inside a star. Thin stars have an inside temperature of only a quarter of a million degrees. Tne inside temperature of our own sun,is estimated to be 60 million degrees Fahrenheit. In a really large and dense star there is reason to believe that temperatures of 500 million degrees must occur. It may be that there is an upper limit to heat, but it must be very high. Computations, however, suggest that at 4.600,000,000.000 degrees Fahrenheit matter would be annihilated—whew! It is declared that there is an insurance boom iu England and elsewhere, at the moment. One can readily understand this. These days there is such opportunity offered in insurable things. One can insure one’s smile or lack of It. Some people, in fact, have insured their smiles for £lO,OOO. Income tax risks are insurable as also is a Parliamentary election or the regime of an American President. At least it used to be. A new note in insurance business was struck when an American crooner insured a particular crooning note in his voice for £20,000. Worse things than this can carry a heavy insurance. Even a squint before now’ has been insured for £5OOO. This boom In insurance has even gone to the extent of making it possible for golf clubs to insure against the breaking of members’ false teeth. Golf clubs must be curious places. False teeth are not the only part of the complexion that can be insured. Dimples are an insurable asset, including dimples 'in the knee, which gives a sidelight on the sort ot fashions we have experienced the last few years. The paradise of insurance agents would appear to be the United States of America, where every individual seems to be insured against every inconceivable eventuality. The total amount of- insurance held in America by indivldtials amounts to £2O.O<X) million. It is reckoned that in a few years’ time another £2O billion will be added to. the total. There are 300 people in America insured for a million. It is, indeed, not uncommon to insure the "boss” in America. One motor-car “boss” is. in fact, insured for nearly £2l million. Playwrights and pulishers insure against the failure of a play or a book. Theatrical backers in England, moreover, often insure against a death in the Royal Family, which would cause them heavy losses through the closing of the theatres. For a premium of £450 the pantomime “Aladdin” was insured for £90,000. Chemists insure against mistakes in their prescriptions, and travellers can insure against almost anythin;'. One careful traveller, who was travelling on the same boat as Almee McPherson, insured against “getting” religion on the voyage.