WHAT IS LIGHT?

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 2 January 1926, Page 5

WHAT IS LIGHT?

particles or waves ? SCIENTISTS AT WORK A. SUPER EINSTEIN THEORY. BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION -COP Y HIGH T. NEW YORK, Dec. 30. Dp. Charles St. John, at Kansas City, declared that the world was on the threshold of a super Einstein theory, which would be as startling as the Einstein theory was compared with previously accepted views. Dr. St. John, following on Dr. Miller’s claim to have disproved the first part of the Einstein theory, announced to-day that experiments he has . been conducting at Mount Wilson simultaneously with Dr. Miller gave results strictly according with Einstein’s, thus tending to uphold the Einstein theory. Drs. Miller and St. John, who are close friends, were asked how they could reconcile the wide differences in the results of the experiments. Dr. St. John replied: ‘‘l do not believe the results can be reconciled either on basis of the Einstein theory or by throwing the theory overboard. I believe a solution will come in the new theory which will start with the Einstein theory and go farther. There ie no reason for believing the Einstein theory is the final thing in our concept of the universe. Science is faced to-day with another conflict just as big as that between my results and Dr. Miller’s. It is over the nature of light. One set of experiments shows conclusively that light consists of waves. Another set shows equally conclusively that light is composed of particles known as quanta. Now light cannot consist of both, therefore it must he that there is some truth in each concept, and the world must wait until a genius combines them into the correct view. Similar reconciliation is possible between the Einstein theory and Dr. Miller’s findings.” Professor Einstein, who is a Swiss Jew, went a .step beyond Newton, and demonstrated that light itself was composed of particles of matter, and hence had to obey the same law of gravitation. This he showed by the result of the British Solar Eclipse Expedition, May 29 ,1919. The moon, travelling around the earth, at .some time comes between it and the sun. Astronomers calculated the exact date at which .such an eclipse would take place, and made ararngerrKents to have photographs taken of the heavens during the period of its duration, and also photographs when the sun was absent. Einstein maintained that the light from a certain star was deflected by the attraction of the sun. He proved his point for, when the photographs were compared, and elaborate calculations and measurements taken at Greenwich Observatory, it was found without a shadow of doubt, that the deflection had taken place,‘and to almost the exact degree which he had prophesied. Relatively is another discovery of Einstein. A.ll time is relative. For instance, a tlay with us is not of the same duration as that of Mercury or Neptune. The former is only a fourth of ours, Neptune .104 times as long. Therefore, unless there is a fixed point in space to which we can refer everything, time can be only relative. Both Professori Lair.or, in England, and Professor Loren tz, of Holland, came to the conclusion that matter is contracted in the direction of its motion through the ether current, bodies being actually shortened in the direction of their motion. As you change your position, everything changes and contracts to correspond, «o that there is no basis for comparison. Einstein’s thesis is that all we can discuss is the relative motion of one body with another. Time is really the Fourth Dimension and must lie measured as is length, height and breadth. Objects moving in space build up different, time intervals —thus time and space are a liter-linked.