SCIENCE NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19328, 15 May 1926, Page 4 (Supplement)

SCIENCE NOTES.

INSIDE OF A STAR.

"A HURLY-BURLY OF ATOMS."

BEWILDERING INTRICACIES. Dealing with " The Constitution and Evolution of the Stars," Professor A. S. Eddington, of Cambridge, in a lecture in London, introduced his audience to theinterior of a star. Taking the double star Capella, the lecturer said it had a density little greater tthan that of air and a temperature at the centre of some seven million degrees, and at the outside of between five and six thousand degrees. " The inside of a star," he said, " is a hurly-burly of atoms, electrons, and other waves. We have to call to aid the most f recent discoveries of atomic physics to follow the intricacies of tho dance. Tryto picture the tumult. Dishevelled atoms tear along at fifty million miles a second with only a few tatters left of their elaborate cloaks of electrons torn from them in the scrimmage. The lost electrons are speeding a hundred times faster to find new. resting places. " A thousand narrow shaves happen to the electron in tenths of a second; sometimes there is a rude side-slip at a curve, but tho electron still goes on with increased or decreased energy. Then comes a worso slip than usual; the electron is fairly caught and attached to the atom. Elsewhere two of tho atoms are meeting full tilt and rebounding with further disaster to their scanty remains of vesture.

" We ask ourselves can this be the stately drama of stellar revolution ? The motions of the electrons are as harmonious as those of the stars, but in a different scale of space and time, and the music of tho sphere is being played on a keyboard fifty octaves higher. And what is the result of all this bustle? Very little. Unless we have in mind an extremely long stretch of time, the general state of the star remains steady."

ELECTRICITY ON THE FARM. How electricity can save the British farmer, and bring back to the land its old-time prosperity, is boing demonstrated in the all-electric farm, worked by Mr, R. Matthews, near East Grinstead, Sussex. Mr. Matthews has in use some 80 different electrical machines, each with a distinct function. The power for the working of these machines he obtains from a stream a mile away from the control room situated in the centre of the farm. Chief among the experiments he has brought to a successful termination is that whereby corn is made to increase its yield by at least 10 per cent., and often by as much as 50 per cent., through the discharge of high- tension electricity for an hour a day over the growing crop. LANDING AEROPLANES IN FOG. A paper on " Landing Aircraft in Fog," prepared by Flight-Lieutenant H. Cooch, was read at a recent meeting of the Royal Aeronautical Society in London. Describing the instruments perfected for use on machines, the writer said that on a one-two hundredth scale model it had been found possible to guide a machine and eventually land it on the model aerodrome without the operator seeing either machine or ground. The instrument in its present form consisted of three ground glass scales, over which spots of light moved. Scales one and two indicated whether the machine was directly over or to the left or right of the correct track, while scale three only operated when the machine was over the correct landing ground. The instruments used, declared the writer, were so sensitive that they recorded signals which were far weaker than those required to give an audible signal in a telephone.