Ashbury College - Ashburian Yearbook (Ottawa, Ontario Canada)

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THE ASHBURIAN IZII Again we are familiar with horse-power, so that we can realize the signifi- cance of a power of 10. 20 or 100 h.p. Hut the sun is continually pouring forth 300,000.000.000,000 h.p. and what is more this Hood of energy bridges the in- tervening space between the earth and the sun without heating it. Again, the disintegration of an atom in a star billions of miles away will send to us a wave of energy which we may trap and examine. The limitless spaces surrounding us. the ether. is full of waves of energy in one or other of its Protean forms of light, heat, or electro-magnetism. waves upon which our very lives depend, waves that travel billions of miles from a disintegrating star. waves that destroy or build up mighty worlds. As long ago as the Golden Age of Greece it was held by certain philoso- phers that if a portion of a substance was continually sub-divided into smaller and smaller pieces a limit would eventually be reached when the process could not be continued-the smallest piece of the substance that could exist would then have been obtained. This minute unit they called an atom, that is something that could not be cut. Atoms then were looked upon as the imperishable founda- tion stone of the universe: and until the closing years of the nineteenth century it was still thought that the atom was incapable of damage, that it was ever- lasting. But that belief was destroyed by the discovery of radio-activity. that is, the spontaneous breaking up of the atoms of certain of the heavier elements. And now the atom is being broken up in the laboratory. Mathematicians. by reasoning, astronomers. by studying the stars. and the physists have all reached the same conclusion: every atom of matter is a solar system. It has a central sun round which revolve its planets. The sun is called the Nucleus, the planets. electrons. Suddenly these electrons will jump from one orbit to another. XYhen that happens energy is created that is sent in a wave out into space. But man has not been content simply to discover these amazing facts for he has even harnessed them to his own use. The Callophane, making use of Ultra-Violet rays. can distinguish between forged money and real, and at a recent exhibition of Italian pictures invisible rays protected the paintings from theft. If the line of these rays was broken an alarm sounded and all the doors automatically closed. thus preventing the escape of the criminal. Again Radiation has given our generation the inestimable advantage of radio, cutting down, as it were. the size of our globe. It is the dream of Science to capture one day the heat of desert places, and transmit it through space to Sunless areas, so that barren places may become fertile and fertile places even more fertile.

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moi THE ASHBURIAN Of this lither nobody in the world knows its exact nature, but it is thought to be of an immense density, and for this reason. Sound travels quicker in water than in air and quicker still in metals. So, it may well be agreed that the speed of waves depends on the density of the medium through which they pass. Now the speed of light is almost instantaneous and therefore the density of the ether must be almost infinite. Any article on Radiation would be incomplete without mention being made of the wonders of the X-ray, certain of which carry sufficient energy to penetrate two inches of lead. There are the soft X-rays, less penetrative than the others. such as are used in the shoestores for a correct Fitting, and the hard X-rays, used for medical purposes. But there remained yet another division in Radiation. that of the Cosmic rays explored by Professor Picard in recent times. The penetrating power of these rays can be imagined when it is realized that they are capable of penetrat- ing several yards of lead and have been detected under 800 ft. of water. They were first discovered in the early part of the twentieth century by McLellan and Rutherford and subsequent investigations showed that the amount of cosmic Radiation was independant of the earth's position. Neither day nor night nor the seasons of the year effect the energy received from this source. Evidently they cannot originate in the sun for if this was the case they would be interrupted by the earth's rotation and thus it was concluded that they started from somewhere outside our system. The effect of Cosmic rays on life generally and human life in particular has not yet been fully determined, but Sir .lames .leans asserts that every second Cosmic radiation disintegrates millions of molecules in our bodies. Every second also it is breaking up twenty molecules in each cubic inch of air. So much for the Cosmic-ray, Now let us consider briefly the question of the speed of light. a question inextricably bound up with Radiation. Light travels at the rate of 136,000 miles a second. lf we could travel on a beam of light from our earth we should reach the moon in lk seconds, the sun in 81,5 minutes and Proima Centauri, the nearest star. in four vears. If there were inhabitants on a planet in the Hercules Cluster, and their astronomers directed a super-telescope upon our earth, they would at this hour see something of our life in the Neolithic Age. XYhy is this you may ask. The answer is that the Hercules Cluster is 36,000 light years distant from the earth. That is light travelling at 136.000 miles a second would take 36.000 years to reach that Cluster.

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Q21 THE ASHBURIAN .Xlreadv astonishinf-' results have been obtained bv treatinv various seeds , A ' , 5 C with the X-ray. The grape-fruit, for instance. has been made to mature and bear fruit in twelve weeks instead of the normal three years. By a net-work of wires through which a current of electricity is passed. ground has been kept at a regular and increased temperature and rich crops are raised in a much shorter time than heretofore. l'aradoxically too there is the liklihood of death within the powers of Radiation and also there is the certainty of life, for the Ultra-Yiolet rays have cured a host of deficiency diseases and radium has been used with success in the treatment of cancer. There is already the Super-Tonic ray which directed upon small fish and frogs in water has killed them. Then there is also the mythical death ray. XYill that soon emerge from the shadowy realm of fiction to a too grim reality? If one day man will have it in his power to regulate climate, to make the barren wastes of the earth fertile. to see across a distance of a thousand miles. to extend the three score years and ten of his normal life it will be bv Radiation. In conclusion it is to be noted that scientists now believe that Radiation accounts for psychic experiences. that telepathy consists of some octaye of waves as yet undiscovered. Radiation is surely one of those subjects which justify the use of super- latives.