THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1909. WHAT SCIENTIFIC MEN ARE SAYING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9635, 29 October 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1909. WHAT SCIENTIFIC MEN ARE SAYING.

The wonderful papers read year by year before the British Association focus tftel&wancWs made by the many branches of science. The papers read l this year at Winnipeg are full y of ro nahtic interest. The President of the year, was Prof Sir J. J. Thomson, who dealt with the recent progress in physics, and had quite a fairy tale of wonder to tell. He said that to the discovery of the Rontgen rays they owed the rapidity of the progress recently made in physics. The fascination of that discovery attractj ed many workers to the subject uf the discharge of electricity through gases, and fed to great improvement# in the instruments used in that type of research. The study of gases exposed to Roncgen rays had reveal- j ed in such gases the presence of par ticlis charged w.ti electricity, soma with positive, others with negative electricity. The properties of these particles had been investigated, and these investigations had thrown a new light both on electricity and the structure of matter. After detailii g the results so far achieved in this direction, the President said a knowledge of the mass and size of the two units of electricity, the positive and negative, would give the material for constructing what might be called a molecular theory of electricity, and be a starting point for a theory of the structure of matter. We were dependent from minute to minute upon what we were getting from the sun, and the gifts of the sun were conveyed by the ether. It was the energy of the sun. stored up in coal, waterfalls, and food, that practically did the work of the world. How great was the supply the sun lavished upon us became clear when it was considered that the heat received by the earth under a high sun and a clear sky was equivalent, according to the measurements of Langley, to about 7,000 horse-power per acre. Though our engineers had not yet discovered how to utilise this enormous supply of. power, thev would, he had not the slightest doubt, oltirr.ritely succeed in doing so; and <vhen coal was exhausted, and our water power inadequate, it might be that this was the source from which we should derive the energy necessary for the world's work When that came about our centres of industrial, activity might perhaps, be transferred to the burning deserti off the Sahara, and the value of land determined by its suitability for the reception cf traps to catch sunbeams. This energy, in

the interval between its departure from the sun and its arrival at the earth, must be in the space between them. Thus this space must contain something which, like ordinary matter could store up energy, which could carry at an enormous pace the energy associated with light and heat, and which could in addition

exert the enormous stresses necsssary to keep the earth circling round the sun and the moon round the earth. The study of this all-pervad-ing substance was perhaps the most; fascinating and important duty of the physicist. The new discoveries made in physics in the last few years, and the ideas and potentialities suggested by them, has had an effect upon the workers in that subject akin to that produced in literature by the Renaissance. It had quite dispelled the pea simistic feeling, not uncommon ai that time, that all the interesting things had been discovered, and all that was left was to alter a

decimal or two in some physical constant There never was any justification for this,feeling, there never were any signs of an approach to finality in science. The sum of knowledge was at present at any rate a diverging, not a converging, series. As they conquered peak after peak they saw in front regions full of interest and beauty. In the distance towered still higher peaks, which would yield to those who ascended them still wider prospects.