@ SCIENCE FEATURE

Searching for the |

blue

by P

p. HALDANE

WO American astronomers, Humason and Zwicky, of
Mount Wilson Observatory, in California, have re-

cently reported a hunt

for faint blue stars in two

areas of the heaveris. One was in the neighborhood of
the Hyades in the constellation of the Bull, where stars
are very thick. The other was in the constellation Coma

- Berenices, as far away as pos-
sible from the Milky Way.

They photographed the same
area of sky, first through a
yellow glass and then through
a violet one, and picked out the
48 stars, which appeared much
brighter through the violet than
through the red screen. —

All these stars were very faint
indeed. Even the brightest was
20 times to far away to be vis-
ible with the naked eye.

Readers may well asked what
can be the point of such a
search a}

The answer is quite simple.
The bluer a star, the hotter it
‘is as a general rule.

The reason is straightforward.
As one heats a black object up
it begins to produce invisible
infra-red rays which can be felt
as heat. Then it becomes red-
red, and later white hot.

Still hotter things give blue
light. Thus an arc lamp is
much hotter than a filament
lamp, and much bluer.

But since blue light consists
of more rapid oscillations than
red,. it is quite natural that a
hot body, whose atoms are mov-
ing quickly, should give bluer
light than a moderately hot one.

So what Humason and
Zwicky were really doing was
looking for the hottest bodies
in two regions of the universe.

Rocket ban n

y protest against the rocket
range ‘site in Central Aus-

_ tralia was not a ‘Communist

plot’ but originated in South
Australia twelve months ago,
states an executive member of
Common Cause.

A protest campaign committee
comprising members of Society
of Friends (Quakers), WCTU,
Howard Reform League, Abor-
igines Friends’ Society, Council
of Churches, Common Cause,
Socialist League and Federation
of Scientific Workers was set
up in Adelaide a year ago. Pe-
titions were organised by the
committee and a deputation saw

_ Premier Playford and protested

against “the use of sacred abor-
iginal grounds for rocket experi-
ments.”

“Nothing was said then about
‘Red plots, and I am amazed
at the newspapers attributing

_ FRIDAY, AUGUST 15, 1947

This is a reasonable thing to
do, because matter under ex-
treme conditions develops new
properties (the change of quan-
tity into quality).

i jac spectra of these stars
were photographed, which

made a calculation of their tem-
peratures possible according to
a principle first laid down by
the Indian astromer Saha, and
worked out in more detail by
Milne and Fowler in England.

In a number of cases their
so-called proper motions — that
dis to say, the rate at which
their directions in space alter—
were already known. This made
it possible to pick out those
which were near to the sun;
near, that is to say, in an as-
tronomical sense.

For a near object does not
have to be moving very fast
to alter its apparent position
noticeably in ten years or so.
Se most stars which change
their position quickly are fairly
near to us.

In fact most of the blue stars
in the Hyades shared the mo-
tion of Aldebaran and the other
bright stars of this cluster. So
they must be very much dim-
mer.

It turns out that they belong
to the group of stars called

ot ‘Red Plot’

the protest solely to the Com-
munist Party,’ the executive
member of Common Cause
stated. :

The president of Common
Cause, Adelaide scientist Dr.
Charles Duguid, in a letter to
the Adelaide Advertiser, said
that plans for rocket tests on
the Aborigines’ reserve defeat
the very purpose for which the
reserve was created. Dr. Duguid
denied a statement made in the
House that very few protests
against the range had been re-
ceived. :

“T have before me,” he con-
tinued, “protests from every
state, from every Christian
church, from every Christian
section of every university.
Archbishops, bishops and_ the
heads of protestant denomina-
tions, and tens of thousands of
others unconnected with church-
es have protested.” ,

stars

rof. J. B. HALDANE

white dwarfs, which are extra-
ordinarily dense.

The matter in them is so
closely packed that a cubic
inch of it would weigh a ton.

Although no such star is
bright enough to be seen with-
out a telescope, they are so
common near the earth that it
is quite possible that there are
more of them than of all the
cther stars put together.

Searches in regions like the

Hyades, where there are a lot
of stars, will help to decide
whether this is so. If so, they
probably represent a late stage
of the evolution of stars, and
perhaps our sun will finally con-
tract into one. ;
e

(HE search for the blue stars

xnear the ‘pole of the Milky
Way gave quite a different re-
sult. \

A few are dwarfs, but most
are very bright and large stars
at an enormous distance.

In the direction of the Milky
Way there is so much dust be-
tween the stars that one can
usually only photograph stars,
however bright, a few thousand
light years away.

At right angles to the Milky
Way one can see out into space
beyoné it. And some of these large
blue stars may be a good way
out in the almost empty space
between our galaxy and _ its
neighbors which we see as spiral
nebulae.

So when more is discovered
about them they may help us
to fix the’ scale of the universe
more closely, as well as telling
us more about very hot matter.

When I say very hot, I do not
mean as hot as the matter in
the first millionth of a second
of an atom-bomb explosion, or
the matter of an exploding star,
but the hottest matter which is
on permanent display.

I don’t know what will come
out of such studies, or whether
anything will. I know that the
study of matter in the sun told
us of the existence of one new
kind of matter, namely, the gas
helium, and taught us much
about the behavior of the com-
moner kinds.

In particular, in the sun and
other stars we study matter in
@ much simpler state than is
common on earth; that is to say,
as gas consisting of single
atoms, many of which have
lost one or more electrons.

Their study has been of im-
mense help in laying the foun-
dations of chemistry.

Whether knowledge obtained
in this way will be used for

good or evil does not depend:

on the astronomers.

Unfortunately so, because they
are very internationally minded,
much more so than chemists,
for example.

Star mapping, and particular
eclipse observation, are interna-
tional matters, planned for many
years ahead by the workers con-
cerned, and workers in other
jobs might well learn a lesson
from the International Astro-
nomical Union.

The Ontario CCF

4

and the Marshall Plan ©

*

by LESLIE MORRIS

HE Ontario CCF News has joined the supporters

of the Marshall Plan. In a recent edition its main
political ‘article, spread over two pages, is titled:
‘USSR, A Zig-zag History of Power Politics’, The
Soviet Union is presented to Ontario CCF’ers as the
wrecker of the only hope of the world—U.S. aid to
Europe on General Marshall’s terms. No attempt is
made to assess the viewpoint of the USSR. Uncle Sam
is taken at his face value. Molotov is portrayed as the
evil spirit of modern times. A picture of Bevin, Bid-
ault and Auriol of France and Molotov is captioned:
“Except for one, they meant. well.”

Lest any CCF’er is taken in by this rubbish, let
him ponder the following facts:

The Truman Doctrine of opposing communism
“anywhere in the world” (which, remember, was Hit-
ler’s self-ordained mission) was
dropped like a bombshell on the eve
of the Moscow Conference of the for-
eign ministers. It was calculated to
break it up. It did.

The Marshall Plan was conceived
as the extension to Western Europe
of the military aid to Turkey and
Greece which was proposed by Tru- —
man, Many who saw in the Marshall
Plan of June 5 an abandoning of the
Truman Doctrine have since changed
their tune since the new U.S. direc-
tive on Germany which provides for a
‘ ‘soft peace’ for the German capitalists.

When Marshall spoke at Harvard on June 5 to
announce his plan, he made it clear that the U.S.
would decide who should get dollar aid. He elaborated
it later to make it clear that it was in essentials the
same as Churchill’s “United Europe.”

~

Leslie Morris

The General originally spoke of his plan including
all Western European countries and Poland and —
Czechoslovakia to the East. Later he said his plan
might include all Europe “west of Asia.” At the same
time Dean Acheson, late Assistant Secretary of State,
was saying: “Free peoples who are seeking to preserve
their independence and democratic institutions against
tqtalitarian pressures, either external or internal, will
receive top priority for American reconstruction aid.”

Soviet Union could well have stayed away from the

Paris Conference. It would have been morally justified.

But Marshall was maneuvering to further isolate the USSR

diplomatically as well as economically. Hence Molotov came, ~
made his position frankly clear, and left. For this the

News condemns him. It would have praised him, presumably,

had he come in on Marshall’s, Truman’s and Acheson’s terms.

When Marshall’s Plan was announced, Bevin acted as its |
European organizer, conceiving of it as a united “seograph-
ical” front of France, Britain and the USA. He, too, did not
include the Soviet Union until later, for the maneuvering PU
poses mentioned above. (People should remember that cap-
italist diplomats say one thing and mean another, and that
every major move is accompanied by much deceptive verbiage.
When Soviet diplomats say what they mean, they are cali

“disrupters.”)
e

Concurrent with the Marshall Plan, and as
U.S. dollar aid to Western Europe, was the U.S. demand for
the exclusion of Communist ministers from the Italian 30!

the pay-off for —

French governments, which was carried through mainly DY,

social-democrats.

The USSR and the Eastern European countries have made
it clear, time and again, that they are not opposed to, but
will) welcome, American aid in the reconstruction 0
rope. But, having just waged a terrible war for their national
freedom, they are not disposed to have the loans given

them with Marshall’s political strings attached, strings which ;

might well later become a noose. *

The revival of Germany as an arms-industry base f0F
future anti-Soviet war, just as in the ’twenties, is at the
heart of the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine. Lib:
erals (like the New York paper P.M.) who went overboa
for Marshall naively thinking his policy was opposed to thé
President’s, have since come around to see that they were

‘played for suckers. The CCF News moves much more slowly;

ifat alll
e
NALLY, perhaps this will shake the confidence of some

CcCF’ers in the political sagacity of the editors of ea

paper:

“Mr. Bevin’s policy differed little, if at all, from
which the Conservative Party, would have pursued. It
the more astonishing, therefore, to read in the recent
Party pamphlet ‘Cards on the Table’ a series of statem'

, policy,
rica al
eae

which not only totally ignore the support which our vnich

has given to the government in its foreign policy, but
even suggest that, had we been in power, we should nave
pursued totally different aims.” ' vs

That was seid by Anthony Eden on June 6, the day after
General Marshall announced his famous plan.

What price Ernest Bevin?

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE