THE INVISIBLE MAN

Shannon News, 23 October 1928, Page 2

THE INVISIBLE MAN

ONE OF OLDEST DREAMS,

Stories of- invisible men .are not without tlieir, uses. Even students .of science may learn something from them, says' Professor Regis Massac, of Massac, of McGlll .University", Montreal, writing in "La- Science Moderne '' (Paris). ProfesHwi' Massac analyses particularly the tales of H. (1. Wells and his imitators. He does not mention the recent, claim of a German investigator, who, as reported in the daily Press, asserts that he has actually succeeded in rendering bodies in vis, ible; but his discussion of the use or usefullness of such a process is both informing and illuminating. Writes Professor Massac, in, substance: The miracle of invisibility is one of the oldest of dreams. The legend of the ring of Gygcs is related both by Plato and by Herodotus. From this .point we should'have tq, leap .suddenly" to the well-known tale of 11. G. Wells if we did not lin'd on our road the fantastic account of k Cyrano do. Per gerac, who describes, among other wonders, that of'invisibility realised, it was during his journey to the sun that this adventure occurred. He says: "I realised that, by a secret necessity of light at its source, my' vehicle nud I had both become transparent. I suppose that the sun, in regions so near to it/..purges bodies more completely of their opacity by arranging more nearly in straight lines, the-ultimate particles of matter'.'" In other words, light had become capable of passing between the atoms.; The sun \s rays, in fact, lnd become X-rays. The very insufficiency of this narrative,, amusing as it is, rather than convincing, causes us to realise better the difficulties of the problem, and helps-us to understand why the stories of invisible men are much more definite than.those of artificial men, or flying men, or men who eauiidt be killed. To make invisibility probable was too great a task for. the science of CyI rano's time. The theories of the propagation of light, are still a subject or [infinite controversy (is not Einstein's | theory partly a desperate effort to put I -an -end 16 it?) and'optics is a science of slow development, difficilt to popularise. Tissue of Difficulties. , It is not. suiprising, then, that we j have had to wait until modern times — even contemporary ones—to see the in-visible-man ' stories cropping up. AH the tales of this sort that I know gravitate around that of Wells. This is based on the fact that what pre vents a transparent body from being completely invisible is the fact that it lias ..'.not the same index of refraction as the air; although light-rays pass through,' they are •deviated ' and the contours of the object arc' seen. It suffices then to find a means' not only of making objects transparent, but of giving them the same refractive power is the air. This means, Wells' hero discovers. He makes himself invisible, cut lie cannot invisibilisc his clothes or anything else'about him. His life becomes an inextricable tissue of diffi["Unities. The tale is "quite as much philosophic as scientific. ,

I The imitators have added almost [ nothing to the scientific part of.the int vention. The fertile rdmanccr, Loui.j Boussenard, in'"Monsieur Ricn" (Mi. Nothing), has tackled the question of clothing. Monsieur Rien, before rendering himself invisible, developed considerably, by means of an appropriate preparation (not any more difficult, than finding the formula for invisibility), the vitality of the .hairy coating of,his skin, turning it into a verifable fleece. He became a furry animal, but, an invisible one, since each hair naturally participated in the qualities oi' a few , philosophic reflections. After was that when it rained, our man carried about a "wet-dog"' odour that betrayed his presence. Also, when he walked in the rain, his outline was vaguely marked by the rebounding drops. _ Vanity of the Whole Affair.

Edmund'Csizai, in. "Joe Eolloil" (French edition. 1919), imitates Weli> still more directly, since his hero begins by stealing' from a, descendant o! Wells' "Invisible Man" the papers containing his famous formula. But he undertakes to improve it, ,for Joe Eollon regards him as a person without foresight. He obtains a second for inula . enabling him to make him soli visible again, and he is thus only temporarily invisible, whenever ho-

chooses. He also solves the problem of slothing, for he succeeds in rendering invisible his shoes, pyjamas, trousers, and dressing-gown. -Joe becomes a millionaire; one of his adventures is when he hides behind a statue in a village church and showers banknotes on a poor peasant. The author' ends, like Wells, by demonstrating the vanity of the whole thing; his hero finally gives up invisibility and destroys the famous formula. The fatality with which this conclusion imposes itself may load us to the whole organism and thus was perfectly transparent. But the trouble reading two or three invisible-man j stories we soon perceive how chihUsh is the whole idea. 'To day, if this '' miracle could ever be realised, it would be only to scientific toy, suited only to amuse the crowd for a £bw month:*, and a hundred thousand times less important than the' theory of luminous r.henomena iniplied in its realisation, about" which a word may now be said. "'Such'realisation is decidedly doubtful, and the talcs' of Wells and his imitators raise at several points .objections of a scientific nature. H"lra-_tive index equal to that of the air? Very pretty; but is the index of refraction

of the air always the same? This index should vary with the humidity, an<3 that of the invisible bodies would

not follow it. Invisibility would never,.or rarely, be perfect. Maurice Kenard in "The Man Who Would be Invisible," states another objection that is still more serious. If al parts of the body ape permeable by light-rays, the tissues of the eye would

be so themselves. They would be absolutely incapable of reflecting and absorbing light, to transform it into luminous sensations. It follows that the invisible man would also be a blind ni3i). This is what happened to -Renal d's hero, .who haying Winded himself by his manipulations, believes that he has actually become invisible, Pitying and complaisant -relatives foster this-illusiemp which consoles him in his blindness. Thus this idea of invisibility, so seductive at first sight, so rich in possibilities from a literary us well a« a scientific point of view, ends only in a fiasco. : '