276 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1959 
quantity of electrons of known energies was injected into the earth’s 
field at known times and places. 
Another highly specialized investigation was directed toward the 
so-called whistler phenomenon. This involves the observation of elec- 
tromagnetic radiation from lightning discharges, which similarly fol- 
lows magnetic lines of force in the presence of a radiation field, to be 
heard finally through radio receivers at the conjugate points as rising 
or falling whistle sounds. This is explained as being due to differences 
in the propagation rates of the different radio frequencies produced 
by a lightning discharge. Unaccountably, however, whistlers have in 
some instances been heard over widespread areas not conjugate to each 
other ; hence the radiation is not necessarily confined to magnetic-field 
lines. 
New tools of man.—The use of rockets and earth satellites has in 
itself been a dramatic technical achievement, aside from the great 
value of the observational data so acquired. Ushering in, as they do, 
a new age of scientific exploration, they now provide exciting pros- 
pects of adding to human knowledge. Among the future objectives 
may be mentioned the further study of heat radiation, earth cloud 
cover, gravity and magnetic fields, the composition and processes of in- 
terplanetary media, life processes, the atmospheres, ionospheres, com- 
position and structure of the planets, new fields of astronomy, solar 
nuclear processes, and the validity of Einstein’s general relativity. As 
this is written plans are afoot to conduct a “clock” experiment, to 
determine by use of atomic clocks in space probes whether time goes 
slower with speed of the observer. 
THE HEAT AND WATER BUDGET OF THE EARTH 
Weather and climate are among the most immediate preoccupations 
of man. In everything that he does, but especially in his activities 
in the fields, on the sea, and in the air, it exerts controlling influences 
over his very life and death. This, then, is nothing esoteric or “scien- 
tific” to the common man—it is his daily concern, and herein the IGY 
comes closest to his understanding. 
Studies bearing on weather have historically suffered from a paucity 
of worldwide simultaneous data. The highly transitory and vastly 
complex phenomena of weather constitute the very prototype of a 
problem demanding the synoptic approach. The requirements are in- 
stantaneous pictures of the state of the whole atmosphere and broad 
vistas of the patterns of its activity everywhere on earth. These the 
IGY undertook to approach as nearly as possible, and thus meteorol- 
ogy became the greatest single sphere of IGY investigation. 
Meteorology.—History’s most effective steps toward the ideal of 
worldwide simultaneous data were taken in the IGY. For the first 
