IS THIS A GLIMPSE OF THE EINSTEINS THEORY? 



THE INFINITELY DIVERSIFIED MOTIONS OF THE 



HEAVENLY BODIES. 



By William H. Knight 



The Einstein Theory and the abstruse doctrine of "Relativity," 

 announced as they have been in language somewhat obscure to 

 he lay mind, have proved to be puzzling problems even to many 

 scientific minds. If I have obtained a glimpse of the far-reaching 

 significance of the Einstein propositions, they have to do with the 

 infinitely complex motions of all the heavenly bodies. 



We know, for instance, that each one of the innumerable 

 worlds in our Sidereal Universe is not only in rapid motion with 

 respect to all other worlds, but in addition to that each one is 

 probably revolving or rotating round its own axis. Beginning 

 with the earth let us see how this principle works out with 

 respect to all other worlds that exist anywhere in unlimited 

 space. 



We are located on the surface of an earth which, in the lati- 

 tude of Los Angeles, is carrying us forward with a velocity of 

 700 miles per hour. (In this and other instances I shall, for 

 convenience, use approximately round numbers, in order to avoid 

 loading the text with unnecessarily precise fractional detail.) 

 But we are at the same time flying forward in the vast orbit of 

 the earth as it moves round the sun at the almost inconceivable 

 rate of 18^ miles per second, or 66,600 miles per hour. Now 

 it takes eight minutes for a ray of light to traverse the space of 

 93,000,000 miles from the sun to the earth. 



Suppose then that at this moment a ray of light from the sun 

 should be directed towards the City of Los Angeles, owing to 

 the rotation of the earth, even if it were not moving in its solar 

 orbit, that ray of light would fall many miles west of Los An- 

 geles. But as the earth has moved many miles in its orbit in 

 each second during that eight minutes that suppositious ray will 

 not strike the earth at all, but will dart out into space, crossing the 

 earth's orbit nearly 9,000 miles behind the earth. But if, at 

 the same moment, a ray was directed towards a point in the 

 earth's orbit about 9.000 miles in advance of the earth's position, 

 that ray will be intercepted by the earth and will gladden its 

 inhabitants with its cheerful light and genial warmth, due to that 

 apparently chance impact. 



For the same reason, when we look at Jupiter this evening, a 

 planet 400,000,000 miles away, we shall see — not the rays which 

 were directed towards the earth at the moment of observation, 

 but those which, 40 minutes ago, were directed towards a^ point 

 in our orbit that it has taken our earth 40 minutes to reach. But 

 here comes another complication in the movement of the light 



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