122 FROM NEBULA TO NEBULA 



in the same brief instant. This is tantamount to saying 

 that the earth, if falling moonward at all, is falling only 

 one inch in about 3 minutes ! Suppose that by some de- 

 vice you could, by manipulating a switch, control gravi- 

 tationally the velocity of a loaded die in the tube so that 

 it would fall as slowly as this, thereby giving you ample 

 opportunity to observe it closely, and it abundant time to 

 adjust itself, Do you conscientiously doubt that the die 

 would turn its loaded side underneath, just the same as it 

 would if sinking slowly in a glass of water ? 



Here I fancy the reader exclaiming, "But you are 

 mistaken in asserting that Newton predicated his conclu- 

 sion upon the behavior of the individual object ; he, on the 

 contrary, inferred it, and correctly, from the fact that ob- 

 jects of very diverse densities, such as a feather, cork, 

 bullet and the like, fall with exactly equal velocity. ' ' 



My first reply to this is, that when you use the word 

 "exactly" in this connection, you display a confidence in 

 your seeing skill that I am far from feeling in my own. 

 For my part, I think that there is as much, and more, un- 

 certainty in correctly deciding the race between two 

 particles, such as a long feather and a tiny spherical bul- 

 let, traveling but a yard or two of height at great veloc- 

 ity, as there is in deciding for example, close plays at sec- 

 ond base in a professional game of baseball. Umpires, at 

 least, know how little dependence is to be placed on the 

 visual judgment of the average ' i fan. " It is truly amaz- 

 ing, the concordance of opinion between the umpire and 

 the crowd, when his decision favors the home team, and 

 equally astounding how little that same umpire's judg- 

 ment is respected, when he decides a close play in favor 

 of the visitors. In the case of the particles, everybody, 

 from Newton down, has been all along betting on the race 

 as a tie, with no takers, and it is not to be wondered at 

 that the verdict is enthusiastically unanimous. 



But even admitting the cogent argument of "pre- 

 ponderant opinion," it is quite as much of a non sequitur 

 to hold, that because objects fall in vacuo with identical 

 velocities, they individually repudiate the law of equili- 

 brium, as it is to assert, that a pellet of lead and a pellet 



