September. 1911. 



KNOWLEDGE. 



365 



simplify the conception a new dynamical term is 

 necessar\- ; it is an expression for the amount of 

 energs- that is possessed b\- a unit mass of any bod\-. 



The necessity for, and the 



meaning of, the term is 

 fully discussed on pages 

 15. 16 and 17 of " Tlie 

 Birth of Worlds and 

 S\-stems,"" in Har[)er's 

 Lil)rar\- of Li\iiig 

 Thought. The new term 

 is Kinetol. The kinetol 

 possessed by monatomic 

 molecules of the different 

 elements when at the 

 same temperature, is 

 inversely as their atomic 

 weight. Thus, the kinetol 

 taken as unity, the kinetol of 

 of owgen would be 



Figure 7. 

 Part of a spectrum of Nova 

 Persei taken on the 5th of 

 March, 1901, at South Ken- 

 sington, and reproduced by 

 kind permission of Sir Norman 

 Lockyer, from his paper in 

 the "Proceedings of the Royal 

 Society," Volume 68. 



of hs'drogen being 

 helium would be one-fourth 

 one-sixteenth and lead one 

 two-hundredth-and-seventh 

 part. The diagram (see 

 Figure 6) re[)resents the 

 atomic kinetol of some of 

 the lighter elements. Popu- 

 larl\- speaking, kinetol is the 

 jiowerto escapefrom a force. 



The spectra of the stars 

 shows that hydrogen is 

 altogether the most 

 prominent element that 

 exhibits itself, and con- 

 sequenth- h}'drogen is the 

 element which is most 

 important to stud\-. 



It is probable that in 

 almost all grazing impacts 

 hydrogen will possess from 

 fifty to a hundred times 

 the kinetol necessary for 

 it to completeh" escape 

 the attraction of the third 

 body. The whole work 

 that it will do in com- 

 pletely escaping will not 

 lessen its velocit\- one 

 per cent. This fact 

 furnishes a complete ex- 

 planation of the phenom- 

 enon that has proved so 

 puzzling in connection 

 with the retention of 

 velocit\' as shown b\' the 

 spectrum of hydrogen in 

 Nova Persei and other 

 new stars. 



The Series of Spectra 

 OF the Third Body. 



deduced light curves of the third bod}' and 

 the observed light curve ot Nova Persei. The 

 contrasted series of spectra are of much greater 

 complexity, yet show the same actual identity 

 of character. On the one hand, there is not 

 a single observation in all the spectrograms that has 

 not been dynamically deduced. And, on the other 

 hand, although the observation of no single obser- 

 \ator\- seems to satisfy all the deductions made, 

 \et, taking the whole world, the observations leave 

 but little to be discovered. There are still a few- 

 minor deductions remaining to be confirmed by 

 observation. Let us examine the salient charac- 

 teristic of the spectra that must be produced by the 

 successive phenomena of the third bodw Clearly 

 at first a mass so hot and under such stupendous 

 pressure will give a continuous spectrum. Presently, 

 as h\drogen escapes from the interior and forms a 

 close atmosphere, the continuous spectrum will be 

 crossed with black absorption lines of hydrogen. 



Figure S. 

 It has already been shown photographs of the Spectrum of Nova Persei, 1901, taken at Stonyhurst College Observatory, 



and copied from a Plate in " Knowledge " for January, 1902. 



how exactl\- similar are the 



