[THEBOOlTSHELP 



The New Heavens: George Ellery Hale, 88 pp. Illustrated. 

 Scribners Sons. Price $1.50. 



Dr. Hale is director of the Mount Wilson Observatory of the 

 Carnegie Institution of Washington, and as we might expect he 

 presents the New Heavens from the angle of "why new ?" Strange 

 as it may seem the heavens which were at the beginning and always 

 have been are now being revealed day after day and night after 

 night as new. It is most interesting that the oldest of all the 

 sciences, Astronomy, is at the present time moving on faster than 

 almost any other; this is largely due to the physicists who have 

 turned their investigating eyes outward and upward. The 

 photographic telescope and the spectroscope have revolutionized 

 our ideas of the stars, the former revealing unsuspected stars in 

 space, the latter giving us the chemical analysis of a star, the rate 

 at which it is moving, approximately its temperature, and in 

 many instances its distance from us. Dr. Hale views all of this 

 progress and then proceeds to give lucid descriptions of the modern 

 telescope and its achievements. There are three chapters in this 

 remarkable little volume, the first is The New Heavens and dis- 

 cusses the early instruments, the modern methods, refractors and 

 reflectors and their relative values, and the 100" telescope. Chapter 

 2nd deals with the Giant Stars and their measurements and in- 

 cludes a description of star images, the measurement by the inter- 

 ferometer which is the method used by Professor Michelson in 

 measuring Betelgeuse, with a description of the latter and also 

 of Arcturus, and the star Antares which is the biggest one yet 

 measured as it has a diameter of four hundred million miles; 

 Dr. Hale's discussion of stellar evolution is especially interesting 

 and edifying. The third chapter on Cosmic Crucibles includes an 

 account of solar helium, the sun spots as magnets, the Tower 

 Telescope, stellar chemistry, astrophysical laboratories, Newton 

 and Einstein, transmutation of the elements, cosmic pressures and 

 the practical value of researches on the constitution of matter. 



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