DO TWO AND TWO MAKE FOUR?

Evening Star, Issue 18852, 29 January 1925, Page 1

DO TWO AND TWO MAKE FOUR?

SCIENTIFIC CONUNDRUMS. [By Professor J. A. Thomson-. in 'John o’ London’s Weekly.] One of tLe most familiar of educational methods is putting questions; and an evolved variety of the question is the conundrum. It, arrests attention; it works in the mind like a ferment. The master of one of the Oxford colleges confessed that ho had given not a little thought to flic conundrum: Why cit. white sheep eat more than bin. k sheep? The method is often utilised by propagandists .and advertisers. We have often stared at a railway station question: Why does 0. man grow old more quickly than a woman? We have started some conundrums of our own: What is the connection between little fishes and the decline of Greece? How do squirrels help the harvest? How do waterwagtails increase the prosperity of the sheep farmer? Everyone knows some of Darwin’s: How do cats affect the clover crop? or Which animal is far and away the most useful to man? KEEPING UP WITH SCIENCE. The most accomplished modern propounder of scientific conundrums is Professor Edwin E. Slosson, Director of the Science Service in Washington. He has made a fine art of hurling " posers ” at the public, questions that harpoon you. conundrums full of ’■pep.” Thus in his luminous- "Chats on Science* .Century Company,', ho catches us with questions like this; Do two and two make four? (which leads us at once to sit intelligently at the feet of Einstein), or How old is disease? or Which organ will give way first? or Do the papers lie about science? In his still more recent ‘ Keeping Up With Science ’ Dr Slosson edits a fascinating series of conundrums which have been set forth from his ‘'Science Service, aad we wish to refer io r. few of tbrso, hoping to* direct many readers to the book itself. It is true, of course, tint no one can get a grip oil any order of laris without hard work am] resolute thinking; but these sparkling marks of interrogation may serve as liberating stimuli, as intellectual triggerpullets. A MILLION YEARS AGO. Science is moving fas;, and many will be glad of this chance of "keeping up,” to the extent at least that is possible for every busy citizen. How far can man see with a icksoope? The Harvard astronomers have recently catalogued a distant universe that is a, million light years away. That is to say, the light they saw had left the far-off cluster of suns and worlds a million years ago. Man tan see six million million million miles. Why does a cat always tail on its feet? The slow-motion picture camera lias displayed the successive positions assumed by a oat dropped back downwards. A sequence of explicable movements of limbs and tail causes a torsional stress of the cat s body, and the normal attitude in rapidly ■assumed in tbe air. The mathematical formula, illustrated, but not used, by the cat, will be found in Dr Slosson’s book.This is the kind oT question which measurement answers. In the growing season does the tree first climb higher or docs it first add to its girth? Or, in Science Service language: " When a tree wakes up some spring morning does it first stretch out its fingers in the sunlight, or does it first kt out its belt another hole?” By delicately precise measurement Professor D. T. MaoDougal finds that the tips begin to grow weeks, sometimes months, before the trunk begins to increase in girth. Why did the woman cross the street? This is the kind of question where measurement is of no avail. She always crossed the street fit a certain block in order, as she said, “to be on the - shady side of the street.” But one of the terrible modern psychologist* found out that the woman had once been frightened by a, dog that snapped at her on'tho street. She nid not like to remember this frigid, so it had been repressed into her “ unconscious/' Anri when she crossed the street she really thought it was to get on the shady side. 'The “ unconscious ” contains the secret springs of conduct. HOW OLD IS THE OCEAN P After one has answered the question: Why is the -ea. salt? one proceeds to compute its age from its salines*. Common halt., or sodium chloride, is brought into tbe ocean by rivers that filch it from the land; and 'the sodium differs from most other things that como to bo, dissolved in t-ho sea water in that little or none of it is precipl|,nt.. ]. Hence if we know how much sodium there is in the ocean and divide that by the amount of sodium that the rivers bring down every year—both ascertainable quanti-vs-fl cet (.lie age of (he ocean, which crimes out at elgldy-nino million year-?.; or. My, for safely, between seventy and 10i) million yeais. But life is much older than that 1 Why do jellies jell? Fruit juices need three substances in ojder to form a jelly — acid, sugar, and pectin, the last the most important, for ii corresponds to the gelatine us- d in making, say, caltsfooi, jelly. To keep to thn last, it. is believed vhat the molecules of gelatine, which are relatively huge, him chains v.hen the soluiion cools, and make a. stiff network which holds a lot of wale.- in its pores. That tins water should not be pur-’- water, but coioted and flavored, i- theoretically an uninteresting lact, though practically very important. HOW DUKE THE ’POSSUM GET INTO THE POUCH? Some people have held Unit the op issum is born m it.- mother's U.tn-pockcl, winch is nonsense. Others have maintained that the marsupial mother lakes the newborn baby in her niuiitT; and jnus t! into her pocket. This may bo true, in some cases, but it is not whet, happens when Die Virginia opossum g---ts into the pouch. For Dr Carl Hartman vos lucky - loci .’h to so 1 " 1 the whole procedure. Alter eleven day- of ante-natal life, the very impcrfccr <.possums are born, and On-re may bo c.ght--en of them.' What ca-li '.hen dvs s« to climb hand over baud among U<‘ mane of hair on their mother’s i.e-lv until - cue o: thorn, a: least reach the t ),,iicii v :,(ie attach ihcinidvc# for a lwo month-- stay.