SPEED OF LIGHT AND SOUND

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 2239, 28 September 1889, Page 3

SPEED OF LIGHT AND SOUND

Sir R. S. Ball g-.vaa an acoount In Goo d Words of a remarkable mettor which pp.saad over great part of the Unlet' States on the 21st December. 1876. Batween Chicago aid St Louts the meteor exploded, be ng ' shivered Into a cluster of briliUnt balls of fire which seemed to chase eaoh other aorosa the sky.' Tho sou .d of tne explosion was beard frightfully loud at Bloumiogtou, lualnni, 185 miies dia.aut. Iv t is instance tbe differeuoe cf the speed at which light and sound travels was strikingly exemplified. 'Sound,' eaya Pruf. Ball, 'takes five seconds to travel a mile. Light travels so qalck'y that th" time ueoessary to traverse a mile, or a nondred miles, ot a thousand milea U utterly inappreciable by ordinary measurement. Tne superb spectacle bad been eeeu at Bioomlogtou, It had caused tbe utmost astonishment. Doobiltas lt bad been disoujied, and notes had been compared by those whose good fortune had permitted tbem to see It. Bat the Immediate excitement was over ftieDdi bat parted for the night ; some of them had entered thoir booses ; others had renewed their walk homewatds, and bad travelled near.'y a mile on their journey ; vehicles had been driven a couple of milea ; trains had run half a dozaa mles: coiumi ot newspapers bad baen read, many who had neen the meteor had already forgotten 11, when their ears were deafened by the arrival of the awful explosion. The waves of sound bud to tray la' diotanoo as gre*t as from Loudon to liverpool, and even at the tA_ of a mile every five reoonde this cannot, be done In Ibeb than a qu«ner of an hour, Probab'y many of those wbo bad heard tho noise ajd taw tho light found it bard to belluve io tbair oonneo- j tion,