SCIENCE SIFTINGS

New Zealand Tablet, 18 August 1921, Page 46

SCIENCE SIFTINGS

(By "Volt.")

Remarkable Results of Sound Study.

A special message from Paris to the Boston Pilot, under date June 23, says:

The honors recently bestowed upon the Abbe Rousselot, of whom it has been said in France that “he made deaf-mutes speak and cannot bp silent,” direct added attention to the number of Catholic scientists who have achieved remarkable things in special fields.

The accomplishments of the Abbe Rousselot have been remarkable in the extreme, some of them almost weird in their astonishing results. By his talents he performed a great service for his country during the great war, as well as doing remarkable things for deaf-mutes.

The fact that his country has rewarded the services he rendered to it during the war by appointing him to the chair of Experimental Phonetics in the College of France is an indication of the esteem in which he is held.

Abbe Rousselot has been referred to as “the priest who silenced cannon. His study of sounds by means of delicate instruments gave him during the war the power to locate the batteries of the enemy. In the summer of 1915 he was stationed at Fontainebleau, taking records on tambours or revolving drums of the wild confusion of sounds that reigned there. From the study of the tracings thus made, each of which represented a given sound; he calculated the intensity, the pitch, and the timbre of the latter.

With this data he was able to determine, by means of carefully worked out tables, not only the exact position but the calibre of every gun in the German batteries. There was something remarkable about the precision with which he could distinguish such sounds coming from various distances as that of the explosion of the charge or the sound-wave coming from the mouth of the gun, the whine of the projectile in the air, and the noise of the shell’s explosion. Furthermore, this was done in the midst of multitudes of other noises.

He camped in the forest of Fontainebleau for days, and devoted his time, strength, and skill to France. From October, 1917, to November, 1918, he was engaged in making experiments on French submarines and in teaching their crews to detect their hidden German enemies.

His work for deaf-mutes was notably fruitful. Through his study of voice production and his analysis of the motions and changes of form of the lips, mouth, larynx, and nostrils, he was able to analyse speech into its elements that he could teach words and even sentences to children and adults, as well, who had been prevented from enunciating either vowels or consonants.

The Abbe is now 75 years of age.

Sun Bombs.

Sun bombs are not of the metallic kind, but consist of a highly heated and very light gas. Their favorite part of the sun is where a great deal of activity is taking place, as, for example, where groups of spots have appeared. This remarkable discovery was made by Dr. of the Mount Wilson Observatory, U.S.A., and he has described them as following one another like balls of a Roman candle, at intervals of 10 or 20 minutes. The bombs, apparently, come to the sun’s surface during the tremendous uprush of gas which produces the sunspots, as generally they are to be seen on the fringe of the spots. 7An explosion of one of these gas bombs often occurs in precisely the same/place.

The speed with which they rush to the surface is equalled by the violence with which they explode. Though they do not appear to be very large when viewed from .he eartha distance of about 93,000,000 miles — must be of enormous dimensions, arid their gaseous contents murig add considerably to the clouds of incandescent gas which hover above big sunspots. They have been photographed, and are now recognised as an established feature of the sun’s activity. Students of solar matters are looking forward with interest to the return of the sunspot period, so that they can study these extraordinary gas ) bombs more effectively. •;