Atlanta Georgian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, April 21, 1913, Image 12

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i * EDITORIAL RAGE THE HOME RARER T THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN Published livery Afternoon Except Sunday By T1IK GEORGIAN* »'»> Ml ‘ \.\> Entered as second ( lass matter at postofflee at A tuta. urulei ad >>f March n. 1873 Subscription Price by carrier, 1U t * nts a seek. By mail, 15.dO u year Payable in' Advance The Big and the Little. Do You Enjoy Strange, Overwhelm ing Figures? If You Do, 1 hen You Mav be Interested in Reading i his Editorial About Atoms. . Do you realize, readers, that it is impossible for us to judge OF THE SIZE OF ANYTHING IN THIS WORLD 1 ' For instance, from'pne point of view a human being is a colossal giant, as great as the universe as that universe reveals itself to you. Your body contains endless billions upon billions of cells. Every one of these cells is divided into infinite collections of molecules, and these in their turn into atoms, and these into electrons. (We have not YET subdivided the electron.) Every one of the endless billions of cells in your body breathes, eats, has its separate sensations and functions. In one corner of YOUR anatomy, in the inside, where things run themselves, there exist living creatures exceeding in number all the human beings on the earth, AND ALL THAT EVER HAVE BEEN ON THE EARTH When you have a cold in your head and begin sneezing vio lently, there are borne upon the mucous membrane that lines your nose and throat more living things in twenty-four hours than there are human souls in heaven or the other place, endless hundreds of millions of them. A man is a marvelously gigantic creature, looked at from the point of view OF THE CELL, THE SIMPLEST LIVING ORGANISM And yet this earth, upon which sixteen hundred million human beings with all their billions of cells live, might drop upon the sun’s surface. AND IF THIS EARTH EVER DID DROP UPON THE SURFACE OF THE SUN, IT WOULD MELT BEFORE IT STRUCK THE SUN, LIKE A FLAKE OF SNOW FALLING UPON A RED-HOT STOVE. Man is an en tire universe IN THE EYES OF THE MICROBE THAT IS BORN AND DIES WITHIN HIM. The earth looks big to man. ft is as a pebble compared to the sun. And the sun, in infinite space, is smaller proportionately than a grain of sand on the shore of the Pacific Ocean. Man, with his endless billions of living, breathing, eating, feeling cells, fed by the blood and requiring the fresh air as does man himself, is apt to look upon one of these cells as a very small thing. But to the atom, which we used to consider the final limit of smallness, the cell looks as big as the man looks to the cell, and bigger. The atom in its turn is divided up into electrons, and how they are divided nobody knows yet. However, the atom is quite small enough even to please a man with a genuine passion for smallness. Some enthusiastic religious authority said that a great many human souls could dance upon the point of a needle. So they COULD, assuming—which seems reasonable—that each soul is about th? size of an atom. An atom could go for a long walk across the top of the point of a needle, imagining himself to be lost on a vast, deserted plain of solid steel. Lord Kelvin helps you to imagine what an atom is like by telling you that compared with a drop of water a single atom is about as big as a marble compared with the size of this earth. John A. Brashaer, talking at Lehigh University several years ago and quoted in the American Machinist, gave even a more bewildering idea of the littleness that is possible in nature. For instance, he said that if you took a tiny glass vial, equal to two-fifths of a cubic inch, and filled it with hydrogen cor puscles, you would have in it five hundred and twenty-five oc tillions of those corpuscles. That is quite a large number. Here it is. written out in figures 526,000,000,000,000,000,000.000,- 000,000. To tell you that a tiny flagon as big as the tip of your little finger would hold five hundred and twenty five octillions of sep arate corpuscles may not mean much. Perhaps this comparison will help you. Suppose you allowed the cofpuscles to run out of the flagon at the rate of one thousand every second. TO GET THEM ALL OUT WOULD TAKE SEVENTEEN QUINTILLIONS OF YEARS. This is how seventeen quintillions looks in figures: 17,000,000,000,000,000,000. Nature, you see, is not in a hurry and not stingy. , We simply wanted to call your attention to the marvelous possibilities of littleness and bigness in this entertaining cosmos. To empty a flagon as big- as your finger tip filled with hy drogen corpuscles, pouring them out at the rate of one thousand every second, would take seventeen quintillions of years. That seems a long time. And yet, to empty this universe of the huge suns, planets, satellites and nebulae that it contains would occupy seventeen quintillion times seventeen quintillions of years, if you poured out the planets and suns at the rate of seventeen quintillions to the second, and after the length of time suggested you would not know that you had even begun. You know the fairy story of the child that wanted to know what ETERNITY MEANT. It was told of an enormous moun tain of solid rock, miles high. Once in a thousand years a little bird came and rubbed its beak against that mountain of rock. And when the mountain had entirely disappeared from that cause, THAT WAS THE END OF THE FIRST SECOND OF ETERNITY Eternity of TIME man must face. Unlimited BIGNESS man must face. Unlimited SMALLNESS man must face. WORLDS unlimited. SPACE unlimited. TIME unlimited It is lucky for us that we are glued to this little earth, chasing hap piness and the dollar. WE SHOULD REALLY GET BEWIL DERED IF WE WERE ABLE TO DO MORE THAN HANG ON WITH OUR LITTLE FEET, GLUED BY GRAVITY, AND LOOK AT OUR NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR AND WONDER ABOUT TrfE FASHIONS. P S.—It is almost a shame to print these big figures—they may make poor Mr. Rockefeller feel desperate. His millions look very small among these octillions and quintillions. How ever, he can hud his comfort in figuring out how many thou sand billions of octillions of atoms of silver he would have if he put all his money in ten cent pieces, and how many years it would take him to count the silver atoms. The Atlanta Georgian OO<MXKK»OO<MXH>OO<HX«5OOOOO<X<HOOC^:iC M >OO<>OCMX>OOl>CM>OOO<HX>OOO<M>OOCK^0CHKMXa>O<tO<(OOOOCaXMOO<XaXHX<(OO<('rM>OOOOOOO<XeO UNCLE TRUSTY! Garrett P. Serviss Declares ^ The Universe Is a Vast V ' -■] Theater Composed En- ijpi tirely of Vibrations. LU If There Were No Vibrations There Would Be No Sight, Sound. Touch. Life, or Matter. By GARRETT P. SERVISS. r "Now, boys, we’ve found out the best way to get next to Woodrow! You know he gets all his in formation out of the London Times! We must play up the English strong! We’ll give him a spiel something like this: ‘I say, Woodrow, dear old top, those are rippin’ fine ideas you’ve got about the tariff! Of course, between ourselves, dear old chap, you’re a bit tangled and you’re barkin’ up the wrong, tree, but we don’t mind as long as you let us 'ave a x fhawnce to trim that bloomin' little bounder, the Common People! Really, dear boy, it does our 'earts good to see you readin’ the bally old Times! Awfter your term's over we’ll make you a professor at Hoxford! Quite so! Just fahney!’ And remember, boys, if he offers you refreshments, don’t use the words ‘lemonade’ and ‘cigar’! Say you’ll have a ‘lemon squash’ and a ‘cheroot’! And don’t say ‘half-past four’; say ‘hawf awfter four’! Now, all together: ‘Rule Britannia, dontcherknow, Britannia rules the waves! Britons nevah, nevah, nevah shawn’t be slaves!”’ DCMXMX>00<HXHP<MaoooOC8XH50000000000 : 0000000000<)' v $ t tow Women ] R.egarc 1 ] Eacl i Other §> By DOROTHY DIX O NE of the most interesting and signiffoant features of the whole feminist move inent Is the altered point of view with which women regard each other. It has not only brought the women of every Tank and sta tion together, but it has taught them to stand together. It has made Judy O’Grady and the Colonel's Lady realize that they were sisters under the akin, and it has made Judy O’Grady and the I’olonel’s Lady feel re sponsible for each other and ani\ ious to help each other. Striking Examples. You see this exemplified in the way in which rich and fashion able women, and women college professors, and college graduates have rallied to the assistance of the striking garment workers in their fight for a living wage and decent working conditions. Yon see it in the fact that every movement that has for its aim the safeguarding of girls. the shortening of working hours for women, or for the welfare of women in any way invariably has a solid backing of the best women in every community. You see it in the way in which every woman who has succeeded in any business or profession tries to help every other woman who is starting forth to begin her own battle with the world. Only a few days ago the papers published the story of a wealthy l woman who had commissioned a singing teacher in New York to pick out two poor girls with fine voices whose expenses she would pay while they went abroad and fitted themselves to become opera I singers. In these days you never hear a woman say that a woman's best friend is a man. and that when she wants a favor she always goes to the opposite sex. Rivalry and Jealousy. Women know now that a woman's best friend is a woman, and that she's the only one who never expects to be paid back for her kindness. The old days when every woman was suspi cious of every other woman, ami they were at each other's throats >ke tigresses have gone, merged in the dawn of a better era that DOROTHY DIX. is swe$t with the sisterhood of woman. Of couVse. being human, there is bound to be a certain amount of selfishness and rivalry land jealousy. The star actress has not reached the millennium in which she steps aside and gives the spotlight to the debutante; the woman who is at the head of a department does not yield her position and fat salary to a new- vomer without a struggle, nor does the wife resign her husband to an affinity without a protest, any more than men do any of these things, but there is a more fair and honest rivalry between women than there used to be. and a keener realization of other womens rights. A most interesting illustration of this changed point of view of women, and of their new realiza tion )f their sisterhood has just come to me in a letter from a young girl of nineteen. She writes that she is deeply in love with a man to whom she is en gaged to be married, sfie has recently found out, however, that this man has wronged a young girl, and, putting aside her own feelings, she has been urging him to make what amends he can by marrying the other woman. I feel that this other girl has a far stronger claim upon him than I have,” she writes, "‘and that if he were any sort of a rnan, and nad a particle of honor or chivalry in his nature, he would marry this poor, unfortunate girl who was a good girl, as he ad mits. until he met her. Any way, I feel that I could never be happy with him, because I could never forget or forgive his treachery to that trusting girl. Yet I love him dearly, and it breaks my heart to even think of sending him from me.” Is not this letter—and I assure you I have quoted it literally— an illustration of the new nobil ity of Iwomanhood? Yet the writer has no notion that she is an idealist ir an al truist. She is just a plain work ing girl, without very much edu cation, who sees clearly her duty to her sister woman, and uncon sciously realizes that women must fight each other’s battles, shoulder to shoulder, when they face a common enemy. Ten years no woman would have written such a letter, no girl would have taken such a po sition. For ages it has been the custom to make the woman bear all the burden of the wrong do ing in such affairs, and to send the female sinner to Coventry while you asked the male sinner to dinner. And the chief stoners of the Magdalenes were women. A New Chivalry. 1 think that the act of this lit tle working girl who tells the man she loves to go and marry another woma 1 because the oth er woman's claim upon him Is greater than hers, is worthy of a place beside that immortal le gend. It is a beautiful example of the chivalry of woman to woman, and that is something that is new in the history of the world. The New Sea Song By JAMES J. MONTAGUE. Secretary Daniels has ordered the terms port and starboard aban doned for right and left; also other changes of sea language to con form to the more rational shore talk.—News Item. T HR battleship “Josephus.” fflth a thousand employees. Hf‘r chimneys belching brownish gas, moved out across the seas. The manager upon the roof leaned o'er the balustrade^ And watched, a little to the left, the shore line sink and fade. Downstairs the kitchen stove was lit, and many a savory course Was there to feed, at half-past six. the right-hand working force. Behind the dining room a throng of operatives stood And caroled forth an old sea song, as modem sailors should; “Fifteen men on the trunk of the deceased! Rah! Rah! Rah! and a quart of Jamaica! Intoxicants and the evil one had decimated the remainder! Rah! Rah! Rah! and a bottle of Jamaica! But a single surviving member of an establishment That originally numbered, on its initial trip, Five and seventy!” But hark! Up yonder in the air there comes a crackling sound, A wireless letter! Now the boat begins to tum around. The chauffeur, bracing both his feet upon his teakwood lattice. Swings heavily from left to right the guiding apparatus. Across the blue and dancing waves a motor ferry hums, And straight to join the battleship the Secretary comes! He mounts the stairs, he gains the roof; he looks about the boat. He gasps, and solemnly exclaims; “By Jingo! It's afloat!” And as he gulps dow n his surprise the music-making throng That stands behind the dining room trolls forth this salty song: “On wild delight his soul he feeds As toward the rear his ship proceeds. And in the apex of the boat He chants with proudly swelling throat: Left-hand force, heiio! Left-hand force, left-hand force! Left-hand foo-rce, he-e-el-lo!” W E? live in a world, and in deed in a universe, com posed altogether of vi brations. If there were no vibra tions there would be no sight, no sound, no touch, no life and no matter, for what we call “matter” appears to be only an effect of a particular kind of motion, taking place in an imponderable, invisi ble. untouchable medium called “ether.” « \ The ether is shaken one way and a blazing sun shines out; it is shaken another way and £ solid world comes into existence. Oth er vibrations form animals and plants to inhabit the world. Still others dissipate them into appar ent nothingness. Everything is in a continual flux, passing from form to form, now visible, now in visible; now solid, now liquid, now vaporous; now nothing at all, as far as we can see?! Made ud ourselves of vibra tions. we possess, while the atomic combinations of which we are formed persist, the power to per ceive yet other vibrations, which tell us all we know of the world and the universe about us. Out of the midst of this uni versal quiver science succeeds in selecting certain vibrations, and measuring them. Vibrations from the sun, falling upon the face of nature, come back reflected from a thousand different substances in a thousand different colors, tints and shades. Vibrations Produce Effect. They strike upon a rose, and the rose sends back those that un dulate at the rate of four hundred million-million per second and produce for us the effect of the color red. They fall upon a violet, and the violet sends back those that vibrate at the rate of six hundred million-million per sec ond and produce for us the effect of the color blue. Sound waves vibrating at the rate of 40 per second give us the impression of the lowest note of the pipe organ. Vibrating at the rate of 4^000 per second, they pro duce the highest note of the pic colo. The soul of music dwells be tween those limits. All above or below is. for us, either silence or mere noise. In a fascinating article In the Cosmopolitan Magazine for May you will read of the efforts that Thomas A. Edison is now mak ing to extend our knowledge of vibrations. Mr. Edison Is deaf, as far as ordinary hearing is con cerned, but nevertheless he has developed a wonderful power of perceiving sounds that escape others, and he has become so much Interested in music, through the development of his phono graph, that he is now enthusias tically at work upon a scheme for the standardization of musi cal vibrations, the result of which, he believes, will be to place mu sic, for the first time, upon a scientific basis. But even more interesting for those who love 1 to peer deep into the yet unsolved mysteries of n». ture is Mr. Edison's plan to catch and turn into sounds perceivable by the human ear a multitude of vibrations which are continually playing about us, but which go unnoticed because our ears ars not attuned to their rate of pul sation. * , • The world, as he says, must bo full of sounds that we can not hear because their vibrations are too quick. He purposes to tamo some of these wild sounds of na ture and bring them within the range of normal hearing. Will Record Earth Sounds. By running a phonograph at high speed it may be possible to ealeh records of some of them, and then by running the records more slow ly through ^he repro ducing machine the vibrations may be so reduced in rapidity that they will come within the limited range of the ear. Thus inaudible sounds will be rendered audible, as astronomical photo graphs picture invisible stars. I-ike his dream, a good many years ago, of rendering the roar of sun spots audible on the earth by means of a gigantic telephone, this latest idea of the great in ventor is full of the essentially poetic imagination that charac terizes all his work. It should not be expected, how ever, that the captive sounds that are to issue from his mystic pho nograph will differ, essentially, from the highest notes that are naturally audible to us, because when their vibrations are reduced to the same scale they should pro duce a similar effect. Still, it is possible that there will be evident in these transformed sounds some peculiar quality that will differen tiate them from all others, so that we will seem to be listening to melodies as alien to our ears as the fabled music of the spheres. Musicians Might Judge. A concert of sounds caught out of the apparently soundless at mosphere might, judged by a mu sician, be as unmelodious as the serenade of a band of savages, but heard issuing from the mouth of a phonograph whose record has been exposed only to open space it would thrill the thoughtful hearer with extraordinary sensa tions. But, just as Mr. Edison re joices because his deafness re lieves him from a thousand sounds that he does not care to hear, so. perhaps, when he has enabled us to hear what the powers of the air are saying, we may be glad that nature shut them away from our ears, for who can guess what howling and screaming and un earthly vociferation there may be in the seemingly quiet atmos phere about us? Comments of the Press on Hearst’s Sunday American Words of Praise From Georgia Papers “MEANS MUCH TO THE SOUTH.’ (Gainesville, Ga., News.) Hearst’s Sunday American is a magnificent newspaper. It is well printed, finely illustrated, su perbly edited and filled with all the news worth while. It is be lieved that the entrance of Mr. Hearst into Southern journalism means much to the South In the upbuilding and exploitation of its resources. ‘‘HAILED WITH INTEREST.” (Athens, Ga., Banner.) The appearance of Hearst’s , Sunday 'American was hailed with considerable interest by the readers of the Sunday papers. It was full of all the popular com ics, contained a magazine section, had numerous general and At lanta local feature stories and other interesting things in its many pages. • A GEM O^ A NEWSPAPER.” (Brunswick. Ga., News.) Hearst’s Sunday American cer tainly looks good to us. It is a gem of a newspaper from any and every point of view. “ONE OF THE BEST.” (Covington, Ga., News.) Hearst’s new Sunday papet to Atlanta, The Sunday American, Is one of the best newspapers It has been our pleasure to read. Ths scope covered throughout the vws section is' broad and enter taining, showing . the master hand of newspaper men who know how to produce the heat. “IT IS A PEACH* (Brunswick, Ga., News.) Hearst’s Sunday American is «- peach. It is one of the prettiest newspapers off any press any where, and Atlanta Is Indeed for tunate in having such an expo nent. "BOUND TO BE BIG SUCCESS.” (Hawkinsville, Ga., News.) Hearst’s Sunday American is a mammoth publication and is bound to be a big success, a3 it caters to all classes. “IS A GREAT PAPER.” (Butler, Ga., Herald.) Hearst’s Sunday American is & great paper.