University of Pittsburgh - Owl Yearbook (Pittsburgh, PA)

 - Class of 1908

Page 24 of 404

 

University of Pittsburgh - Owl Yearbook (Pittsburgh, PA) online collection, 1908 Edition, Page 24 of 404
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University of Pittsburgh - Owl Yearbook (Pittsburgh, PA) online collection, 1908 Edition, Page 23
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sun’s radiant energy, and the intimately correlated problem of life upon our globe. Professor I-angley found time to study many minor though important questions bearing upon radiant energy, not alone from the sun but from other sources. His studies of the moon’s temperature added immensely to our knowledge of the “lesser light that rules the night. With the spectrobolometer, the highest temperature of the moon was found to be about zero centigrade, and the lowest temperature not far from the temperature of space. Professor Langley’s work in mapping the invisible spectrum was a herculean task. Aided by Professors Keeler. Very and Page, thousands of measurements were made with the sjiectrobolometer and read visually before the photographic method was devised and developed so beautifully by Professor Langley and his coworkers at the Smithsonian Institute. Professor I angley received many honors during his life time. To Ik called as the successor of Professor Baird as secretary of the Smithsonian Institution was the highest gift in a scientific sense that could Ik conferred u| n him by his country. Oxford conferred uix n him the degree of I). C. L.; Cambridge, the degree of I). Sc.: Harvard, Princeton. L’niversity of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin conferred u|X)ii him the degree of LL.I). 1 le was a corres|xmdent of the French Academy, a Foreign Member of the Royal Society, a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and other scientific associations. He received the Henry Draper. Count Rumford. Janssen and other medals for his splendid discoveries. Professor Langley was born in Roxbury. Mass.. August 22, 1834. On the twenty-second of November. 1905, he suffered a slight stroke of paralysis but recovered sufficiently to be taken to Aiken. South Carolina, (ireat Iiojk-s were entertained that his recovery was only a matter of time, but it was not so to be. He passed away to the “Summer Land of Song on the 27th day of February. 1906. 11 is Ixxly was brought to Washington and the funeral services held in All Souls Church. The venerable Kdward Fvcrett Hale, an old time friend of Professor Langley, spoke most fitting and kindly words at the brief services, 'flu regents of the Smithsonian Institution acted as honorary pall-bearers, and the members of the Smithsonian staff as active pall-lx arers. lie remains were taken to Boston in a private car. and were laid away in Forest I fills Cemetery by the side of his mother. A short address was delivered at the cemetery by his friend. Alexander Graham Bell, in which he gave a brief resume of Professor I Quigley’s life work. When Napoleon stcxxl at the edge of a great battlefield where a great victory had been won by his soldiers, his ears were deaf to the cries of the wounded and dying; he heard them not, but said to his generals, in the ccstacy of victory: “C’est magnifique . When our own Langley stcxxl on the summit of the old Allegheny hills where so much of his life work had lxen done, and watched the sun setting in all his glory, we heard him exclaim, It is magnificent ”. Now that lie is gone, and we 16

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r reaching almost to the transcendental in his inner life which my long acquaintance and association brought to light. 1 have given but a few instances of these pleasant reminiscences, instances which could lx multiplied many times. Professor I anglcy came by invitation to the Allegheny Observatory in 1.867. Two years afterwards, in 1869, he introduced standard time distribution to the cities and railroads. Professor Langley made good use of the income derived from the time service, for the commencement of that long series of solar researches which have added so much to our knowledge of the sun. I le was an exquisite draughtsman, as can lx testified by the hundreds of beautiful drawings of solar phenomena made by him. Kvcrv student of astronomy has seen reproductions of his charming drawing of the great sun-spot of December. 1873, which has indeed become classic as a “typical sun-spot. Fortunately for Professor Langley's great work of the future, William Thaw, the staunch friend of the observatory and one of the pioneers in its construction and equipment, became deeply interested in the director's solar work, and aided him in many ways. The income of the observatory was so limited that little could be done in experimental research until William Thaw with a most liberal hand and heart provided the means for carrying on this great work, and you will find at the close of almost every monograph written bv Professor Langley. “This research was made possible through the liberality of a citizen of Pittsburgh.” By Mr. Thaw's request his name was never mentioned. In his studies in the domain of solar physics. Professor Langley was early impressed with the idea that much of the radiant energy from the sun was not recognized by the instruments then in use, and after a long series of experiments, discovered and developed that marvelously delicate instrument, the bolometer. With the bolometer a series of investigations were commenced upon the sun. moon and stars, which were continued for many years, bringing to light some of the most important facts in the whole realm of astronomical physics. Professor Langley, with his assistants. Professor Keeler. Professor Very, and Mr. Page, continued the study of the hitherto unknown region of solar radiation until the holographic chart, reaching far down into the spectrum, and showing almost innumerable curves of selective absorption, was given to the world as a most valuable contribution to our knowledge of radiant energy. After years of study at Allegheny upon the problem of selective absorption of the earth's atmosphere at the lower levels. Professor Langley desired to make a similar investigation at a very high altitude. The top of Mt. Whitney in southern California was selected, as well as a station about two miles below the peak. William Thaw provided most of the means for the now famous expedition, our own government also sharing in the expenses of the research. Professor Keeler and Dr. William Day assisted Professor Langley in the work of this expedition, the results of which have now become classic; indeed, have to a large degree settled the problem of the selective absorption of the earth’s atmosphere in its relation to the 5



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look over the fields of science where he has won his grand but bloodless victories, we can but add our final tribute by repeating the words, “It is magnificent’ . J'ROKKSSOR I. A XCI.KYS l-'I.YINC MACH INK. (Professor Langley began his work on flying-machines while director of the Allegheny Observatory. There are said to Ik some remains of his machinery in the cellar of the old building. So we claim some of the honor of the final results and feel an interest in them. 11 is honor is ours.—Editor.) (From the American Magazine, April, 1907—Herbert X. Casson.) Then came a great American who lifted the whole matter (of flying) to a higher level—S. I . Langley. Langley stood at the head of the Smithsonian Institution. lie was officially and by merit one of the most eminent scientists of the world, lie was spangled with medals and honors. Vet he staked all his prestige on the chance of succeeding where Maxim and Ader had failed. l he master passion of Langley's life was to fly. While playing in a meadow near Poston one day, he saw high overhead a soaring hawk, hovering and gliding in smooth circles through the upper air. The boy Langley was fascinated. How glorious, he thought, to Ik a bird! And forty years later the scientist Langley was still under the spell of that feathered wizard of the sky. 1 le began the most thorough and scientific study of birds that had ever been undertaken, it had been stated by Sir Isaac Xewton, and generally believed, that a large bird required relatively more energy than a small one. Langley found that this was absurdly untrue. A condor, for instance, has only one-fourth as much wing per pound as a little screech-owl. A flamingo has one-third as much as a raven, l he two extremes of the bird world, in fact, are the big. lazy albatross, who soars easily on 3,000 mile journeys, and the tiny humming-bird, whose small body is a throbbing dynamo of energy. The one is all sail like a four-masted schooner; the other is all engine, like a gasoline launch. Then Langley went to the museums and studied the pterodactyl—the greatest of all flying machines. As a flying-machine, this gigantic bat. with its twenty-foot wings, was Nature's masterpiece. At the pterodactyl Nature stop|X d and man must begin. Vet this air-king, so Langley found, had onh one-twentieth of a horsepower to drive his thirty pound body against the wind. With these facts to encourage him. Langley proceeded to make an artificial pterodactyl. And so it came to pass, several months later, that a gray-haired scientist stood on the banks of the Potomac and saw his steel-and-canvas bird rise high in the air and fly for a mile with as much ease as though it were a living creature, flic machine was one-fourth the linear dimension of the larger machine afterwards built and was driven by a onc-and-a-half horsepower engine. This flight was the first ever made by a real flying-machine and it proved that human flight is possible. 17

Suggestions in the University of Pittsburgh - Owl Yearbook (Pittsburgh, PA) collection:

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University of Pittsburgh - Owl Yearbook (Pittsburgh, PA) online collection, 1909 Edition, Page 1

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University of Pittsburgh - Owl Yearbook (Pittsburgh, PA) online collection, 1910 Edition, Page 1

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University of Pittsburgh - Owl Yearbook (Pittsburgh, PA) online collection, 1911 Edition, Page 1

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University of Pittsburgh - Owl Yearbook (Pittsburgh, PA) online collection, 1912 Edition, Page 1

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University of Pittsburgh - Owl Yearbook (Pittsburgh, PA) online collection, 1913 Edition, Page 1

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