RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 172, 17 April 1937, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events (By Kickshaws.) One thing about the Alberta Legislature is that it is creditably persistent socially. » « # If those Spaniards were as belligerent as the British Labour Opposition about the Spanish situation the war would last for ever. It is all very well for America to protest about the duty demanded for her peace literature, but it was only recently that Roosevelt himself said that America had a duty to consider regarding the peace of the world. « * * “Could you tell me through the medium of your very interesting column the answers to the following?” says “8.J.” “(1) What is the fastest animal on the earth? Is it the cheetah? (2) Is a piece of iron or steel as thick as a spider’s web, as.strong as a spider's web ?” [One authority has compiled the following speed schedule: —Cheetah, caracal and serval about 80 miles an hour, with the odds on the cheetah. . Antelope 62 miles an hour, lion 62 miles an hour for three seconds, elk 52 miles an hour, horse ridden 40 miles an hour, unridden 45 miles an hour, greyhound 40 miles an hour, kangaroo 35 miles an hour, family dog 25 miles an hour, family cat 20 miles an hour, man 20 miles an hour except in the case of trained athletes who can touch 24 miles an hour for short periods of a second or so. In the case of birds the Virginian plover is said to be able to touch 200 miles an hour and one species of swift 150 miles an hour. A spider’s web is about eight times as strong as mild steel of the same thickness.]. * * A new comet that has been discovered by astronomers in Australia, concerning which there is some argument at the moment, is stated to be moving slowly eastward. Actually, this is a mere figure of speech. Comets usually move at about 80.000 miles an hour, so the word “slow” is merely relative. Relative to what is a matter at the moment of some controversy. We usually measure speed across the surface of the earth in relation to the earth. We measure the speed with which we walk along a corridor in a railway train in relation to the floor of the corridor. We measure the speed of an aeroplane in relation to the air in which it flies. An aeroplane that travels 100 miles an hour would be standing still iu relation to the earth if it flew against a wind of 100 miles an hour. Obviously, we cannot measure the speed of a comet by comparing it with the floor of a corridor in a train or even the world. * » * When an astronomer says a comet Is moving slowly or fast it means in reality that he does not really know at all how it is moving. Moreover, it can he argued that one does not have the slightest idea how fast a motor car is moving. The law assumes the speed is judged in comparison with a stationary world. But this is incorrect. Take a car travelling 35 miles an hour due west. The world’s surface is travelling due east at about 700 miles an hour. So the car is really going backwards at a speed of 655 miles an hour. This seems a little disconcerting. But it is more disconcerting to discover that the world is also travelling round the sun at 43,000 miles an hour. If the time were midday this would mean that the car was being carried forward at 43.000 miles an hour, less 665 miles an hour. The car, therefore, is travelling at 42,335 miles an hour. But that is not the end. The whole solar system is drifting through space toward the star Vega at 45,000 miles an hour. Therefore Die car’s speed is 87,335 miles an hour. Worse still, there is no proof that the distant stars, by which the solar drift is measured, are stationary. This produces an error of plus or minus 10,000 miles an hour. Nobody can say how fast a thing is going is the hard truth of all this. * » » It is doubtful if a learned judge would accept the fact that there is no such thing as absolute motion. In his wisdom he ignores the finer shades of speed and tempers his fine relative to the road along which the errant motorist urged liis car. Actually, one might argue that there is no difference between not moving and a speed of 100,000 miles an hour. Obviously, if the roads were moving at 50 miles an hour the learned judge should fine the road for speeding and not the motorist. Indeed, this line of argument would have the complete support of the scientific world as well as the motoring community. It has been pointed out by scientific experts that there is nothing to indicate what is moving and what is not. Suppose that the world and a comet were alone in space and travelling toward one another at 20 miles a second. There is no way of telling if the world were travelling toward the comet or the comet toward the world, or both. Science has been forced to come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as speed. Maybe one day learned judges will turn scientists. * ♦ ♦ Perhaps the most curious anomaly about speed is that having proved that there is no such thing as speed, even more learned men then proceed to prove that there is a limit to the speed at which anything may travel. In the case of motor-cars it is 30 miles an hour along New Zealand city streets. In the case of aeroplanes, it is the' speed of sound, above which speed all manner of obstacles arise. In the case of anything, motor-cars, aeroplanes, butter, atoms, and potato peelings it is the speed of light. Nothing can travel faster than light. Anything that Ims a speed increases in weight. It is not noticeable in our normal earth speeds of a few hundreds or even thousands of miles an hour. As the speed gets nearer the speed of light, 186,300 miles a second, the weight increases at a greater and greater rate, until at the speed of light, the object becomes infinitely heavy. At the speed of light a pin would weigh more than the world. It would therefore require an infinitely large accelerating force to speed up the pin to the speed of light. Tests made on electrons travelling at enormous speeds have shown that they do increase in weight. One may well ask, therefore, is weight merely a measure of speed? If so. is a piece of lead travelling faster than a feather? * * ♦ There was an old fisher named Fischer, Who fished from the edge of a fissure. Till a fish, with a grin. Pulled the fisherman in; Now they’re fishing the fissure for Fischer.