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INVISIBLE PASSING.HAROLD BEGBIE HAS A CHAT WITH SIR OLIVER LODGE.AchieremuntH of Psychical,Jtesoarcli—Tlie 31 ljjhty Atom—The Election and How ' It 1* Mitcle iteul to the Ordinary 3Ian — The Groat Misunderstood—Tho In-, visible Is Passing to Modern Science.I found myself at dinner the other nighti,seated^ next to the man who first set Europe thinking of wireless, telegraphy. Oliver Lodge is not merely a likeness,..but he is the express image 01 Lord Salisbury'twenty 'years ago; a huge, massive creature, with mountainous head, quiet, cautious,, and watchful eyes under a great dome of brow; the same stoop, of the head, us though' under its own great' weight, and the same curious effect of the hair growing outward from above the sloping - neck ' and high, 'broad sliouiders. If Sir Oliver cared to flour his iron-gray beard and to brush his hat the,wrong way,I am convinced he might walk into' t’ne House of Lords and tell the peers, that the British Constitution is not odapted for business purposos.Our .talk began about electrons, those invisible charges of elect'icity which are said to-be the ultimate subdivision of the . atom—the lust thing in matter,' 1 asked for some kindergarten figure that would make the electron real to me.* ho Mighty Aiom.The professor stroked his beard. '.'Imagine.' said he, .'speaking with incisiveness, as becomes the head of Birmingham's University, “a church 200 feet, long, SO feet wide, and 50tonoiscicthesyrismilsoproBy:forforbigoreamcarhaitin'trypipint —a gras ti-isyoi saw ver scii cen I si thn whi of .moiinter . mai isn' out ies;feet high, and . scattered throughout us.the interior of this a thousand electric charges, each the sire of the ordinary full-stbp of a newspaper. That is how electrons feel inside theis % bla: loci wa’atom! •' . • | raalyouficewilllifenotestHoom enough for each to expand into quite a handsome semi-colon, I said.Yes, there is plenty of room; but they occupy the. atom, nevertheless, as soldiers occupy, a countrj;; they make it impenetrable by reason of r0si the forces they exert: They are violently energetic.‘•And this electron is really the last-thing in matter?So far as we know. Splendid work by •!. J. Thomson of Cam- - key bridge and others has helped us to our present knowledge on the sub- sciemaipret is a.eject-’-' ....................You haven't got to the lost thing in the npritual; kingdom at , pre-i.seht? • v;I am not'-siir'e that we have got hold of the first. .I. said'how great and comforting athing it .was .that .psychical research should be in the hands of such men as himself. Sir William .Crookes,'Mr. Arthur Balfour, Prof. Barratt, and the Bishop of.Jtipon.For the life of me,’’ said Sir 'Oliver, I cannot understand the man in the street’s attitude toward the Psychical Society. Why is it that the man of business and the man of hard-headed sense regard the psychical investigator as ,a- ghost-hunting crank? Are we to' stick to the visible world, and leave the invisible out of account? -Is the optic nerve to be the linch-pin of the wheel of progress ? If so, let astronomy stick to the 6,000 stars visible to man's eye, and forget the 100,000,000 revealed . to us by the telescope and the photo-; graphic film. Even our dear little friend the electron must go, and the sternest materialist, will have to go into mourning for his atom—'though lost to sight, to memory dear,' with a. vengeance.The professor has a shrewd humor —another likeness to Lord Salisbury.The Grout Ii«un*ler*tno«l.ifacthelpold-
Newspaper Details
Cumberland News
Cumberland, British Columbia, CA
Tue, Jul 21, 1903
Page 3
Full Page
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CA 04 May 2025
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