Evening star. [volume], October 13, 1929, Page 2, Image 96

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

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discoveries which were made dally, gave their
facet efforts Jp hd(*)nv« the*? /wq* faithful ,r
seicauits devmop tffe ncwfleld which Ewas theJr
own.
IT is very difficult to rca*fac jjrt what this
discovery meant to the world. At that time
physics was considered to be rather a dead
subject, without much future. The atom Was
regarded as a small, hard particle which
bounced around the universe end never changed.
The chemist was certain that ma.tcr was per
manent. Using a spectroscope, he saw the
lihes ’of common salt everywhere in earthy
substances and through the telescope lie saw
the same lines in the sun, anti the same was
true of many other of our common metals and
gases. Evidently the whole universe wr.s made
of the substances we find here cn earth. "
But Pierre Curie showed, first, that radium
gave off heat without any loss cf weight. It
must, 'therefore, be decomposing in some way,
for It still remained radium. Then it was found
that particles were flying from tb s radium, and
finally it was found to give off a gas, helium,
which hitherto was known to exist only in the
sun. Then it was found to give off X-rays of
a far more penetrating character than those
furnished by X-ray tubes an 3 siowiy it was
forced oh the scientific world that here was
an element undergoing spontaneous decom
position.
It was kept at the temperature of liquid air
and heated in a furnace and y:t the rate of
radiation remained the same. H-nce this was
a new kind of decomposition, and with that it
became evident that wc vKrre watching the
breaking down of the atoms of an element—a
phenomenon which had never been suspected.
This opened up a new hesrcn and a new earth.
If minute particles could fly out of radium and
give the spectrum of helium, it must be that
radium was breaking down or 1 giving off
helium. If, therefore, more mi.xctc particle*
come cut carrying an electrical charge, this
must mean that the atem was net a little, hard
ball, but a solar system in the central
sun was sur/ounded k' scHcs of pl*petk..‘'\
~ Now we know tbit 'there arc nearly 93 "of
these planets revolving around the central sun
.In each atom of radium, and when something
happens—the nature of which we do not yet
know—these particles fly off, some of them at
the rate of nearly 200,000 miles a second, and
great bombs of helium come out. And lately—
one of the most marvel' us discoveries of
all—it has been found that when one of these
bombs strikes an atom cf gas. such as nitrogen,
it can break it apart, and again helium Is
found.
In other words, we have to face the fact
that in all probability all of our elements are
merely compounds of a few rumple sub
stances. Just recently Miiliksn, by using
the same sort of apparatus that Mm». Curie
and her hurtnnd employed, announced that
there are rays ecming from interstellar
space which represent the energy sent forth
when the simpler types of matter unite to
form the complex.
r THUS the views of the whole scientific world
1 on the structure of matter have been
wholly changed by the work of a quiet Polish
woman in a little wooden shed in Paris. The
endless developments In science which this dfe
“They’re Talking in Hollywood,” Says Will Rogers
WELL all I know Is Just what I read In
the papers. I got in home a week
ago from prowling around in various
States visiting relatives and old
friends, and what had been going on
in Hollywood during my absence. My picture
had opened amid no casualties, and I had been
practically forgiven for it; wascnt bad. enough
. ,$o shoot or good enough to cheer. ‘
Went over to the Studio and our General
Manager showed me the new •‘Grandeur**
Screen. That is you cant take an old bed shfct
and tack it up on the wall and throw some
movies on it. This is a great big thing as broad
as a Gettysburg painting that covers the whole
of the opening of the Theater. Its about two
and a half times the width of the old screen.
It has to be taken with a different Camera, and
it has to be projected with a different projecting
Machine, and the width of the Film is Just
about twice what the other was. They say it
will speed up the Movies as it will take in so
much territory that it will do away with the
old idea of continually cutting to a “Close Up.”
That when a scene is being played and there
is a bunch of people that you will have to get
over your “Emotions” all at once and in the
. same picture, that they wont cut to each of
you in a close up. I sho will be glad of that for
, I sho do hate those Close Ups. When those old
Wrinkles commence coming and the old mane is
turning snowy, why we wont want cither Cam
eras or people to commence to crowd us
'J'HIS Broad screen thing locks like almost as
‘ big an innovation as the new Talkies were.
You just get twice as much to look at as you
used to. Then the color thing is coming along
fine where they are going to get our natural
complexion right in the camera, without artificial
coloring after the film is taken. Oh, we are
just getting so many new things that you al
most have to go every night to get ern. A
Theater no more than gets in one type of ap
paratus than it has to start installing another
one. They have more workmen in the Theaters
now than they have audiences. Everybody that
can speak above a whisper is out here to have
their voice invoiced.
The old Town is just a-humming. Broadway,
New York, has moved out, Spats and Dogs. Thjs
, taking Picture craze has-got more Actons, out
York than Abie’a lrish. pßosa.did. They
came tiunking the Screen Actor cant talk. Say
the Screen Actor can talk, but nobody ever
listened to him before. He has been speaking
words in these things for years, but nobody
heard him but the crew. You know after all talk
’l&aAs. ’Ta{k^S^s'Bi^^&it‘
When a chancy record a lor
THg, SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, IX C, OCTOBER 13, 1929—PART 7.
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Mmc. Curie in her Puns Laboratory.
co very has brought about cannot even be cata
logued here. It has done more to sake physics
a live subject than anything else. We one to
it our present radio and many other forma of
electrical apparatus. We owe to it a vastly
different view of the universe and the condition
of the matter of the stars. Xt has helped to
destroy the old ideas as to the nature of light.
It has cleared up the nature of X-rays. The
poattUe developments In the future in a scien
tific way are Unities.
Prof. Becquerel put a small tube of this
newly discovered element in his waistcoat
pocket and went to London to show It to the
members of the Royal Society. Some weeks
The Actor-Author Gives the Latest News
Concerning the “Jumping Celluloids ”
and Those IT ho Make Them.
| ' (,
'
“/ met Ann Pennington
posterity, (posterity means people two weeks
later) why we just snapped at the chance.
I was over to the Studio today and who do I
run onto but Little Aim Pennington. I hadent
seen her in years since we used to work together
in the Pollies. She has collected more money
off her knees than most people have off their
heads. My wife always said that Ann was fc£p
only Woman that had a child’s legs. So you
after he returned he noticed that the Ain
was rather itchy end reddened where the ra
dium tube had been carried and Anally he
dmratoped a radium burn. This showed that
radium had biological effects as well as physical
ones. In a short time the French built up
a system (or the treatment of cancer, aided
by the ideas which the Curies and their col
leagues had puMKhod from the laboratory, and
their discoveries of the effects of these radia
tions and the proper methods or applying
them hare without question saved thousands
of women from death from canoer.
Radium is replacing surgery not only in the
treatment of one special type of cancer peculiar
see its not only me in the family thats high
on Aims underpinning. • ,
Not only Actors but Writers Me all out here.
Ben Ames Williams that you all have read after
so much is here. He wrote the finest Story it
was ever my privalege to work in. That was
one called “Jubllo,” where X played a tramp.
\v Vfb vr*s the polk-Stwy ever made out here where
there was no Scenario made. We just shot the
to women when ta the stage where, it can
tee operated an, blit Itiis even produetog cures
to thdse M[h» hitherto have beyond Jkll
v-beneflt| from operation. This cure is -obtained
wit hoik much discomfort to .the* patient tod
with only a few days in the hospital. This
perhaps would be achievement enough, but the
end is cot yet, for Prof. Regaad, from his
institute in the same little backyard of Paris
where Mme. Curie’s laboratory is, is report
ing a remarkable series of cures of other
types of concer in men and women following
the application of radium by methods which
hfe has devis&L Not' every sufferer Is cured,
tar from it, but some patients who hitherto have
been regarded as perfectly hopeless have now
b:en shown to be cured for five or six yearn,
and the probability is that cure is permanent.
He has also shown that by th? suitable de
velopment of X-ray apparatus we can imitate
and in some ways do better with X-ray than
radium. Here, again, it is true that
the number of cases cured is small, but this
is )<st the beginning. It was only in 18M
that radium was discovered.
Pierre Curie's Hfe was snuffed out in an
accident in 1906. Since that time his wi it
and of late his oldest daughter have carried
on the work which the two began in the shed
in Paris, raising always the stimulus of his
remarkable mind, for, as Mme. Curie says:
"We lived a very simple life, interested
in common as we were in our laboratory ex
periments and the preparation of lectures and
examinations. During 11 years we we ‘
scarcely ever separated. W» spent oar holida to
in the country near Paris or by flic sea or
in the mountains. My husband wus so en
grossed in his researches, however, that it was
difficult for him to remain for any length of
ttoe in a place where be lacked facilities for
work. After a lew days hi vouli say, ‘lt seems
to me a very long time sin'e wc have ac
complished anything.”*
QTJCH absolute devotion to scientific investi
gation is to a certain type of mind the most
wonderful and stimulating of mental activities.
Always struggling forward in seme new field,
always developing new theories to explain the
facts which arise in the course of experimental
researches, this fitting of facts into a great
puzzle and seeing the whole make a beauti
ful creation is often reward enough.
But Mme. Curie has never been wholly satis
fied to remain merely an abstract investigator.
Her heart was wrung during the war by the
sufferings of the soldiers who needed her
in taking X-ray pictures. She thinks always
of the human suffering which her discoveries
may relieve, and she has be:n working for
years, passionately and uninterruptedly, to help
the practical workers with radium extend the
field of its usefulness.
Prance Is now well equipped with institutes,
scattered throughout the country, where the
cancer patient may receive such form of treat
ment as will cure or prolong life or alleviate
suffering. Os late years Mme. Curie’s heart
has turned toward her native state of Warsaw,
hoping to bring to her own countrymen who
suffer from cancer the benefits which her
adopted country offers to its people.
when she steps from the steamer In a few days
site can be told that now Poland can have
a gram of radium to help the suffering.
scenes from the various paragraphs in the Story.
When we took a Seme we just marked it off
and went on to the neat. I think, and he veri
fied it, that it was the only story ever made
that was absolutely filmed as it was written
and herp is the big Novelty to it, we dident
change his main Title either. They will film the
Lords Supper and when it is made figure that
that is not a good release Title and not catchy
enough, so it will be released under the heading,
A Red Hot Meal,” or “The Gastronomical
Orgy.”
J PASSED a theater down by the ranch the
other night and we wanted to go in and had
intended too, but what stared us in the face but
something like “Past Company” or same such
Title, and we just drove on. A few days later
the children got to talking about a good and
funny picture they had seen, a bass Ball Pic
ture, and I got to asking them about it, T»d
it was the one by Ring Lardncr, the Elmer The
Great Play, based on his famous Stories of the
Rookie in baseball. Andy Tombs and I had
done a sketch in the Pollies cf 22 that Ring
wrote that was the neuchis of this play. Well
here this thing called “Post Company” and
featuring some Girl was nothing but Elmer the
Great. Now I know that Title they had drove
out more people than it ever brought in.
So no matter what famous book you have
read and want to see in the Pictures Why you
better start going into every Theater you come
ton Dont look up at the Titles, for “Pationate
Pal” may be just what you wan for as
“Romeo and Juliet" or “She Stoops to Con
quer” may reach your corner labelled “Baby
You Are a Wow.” Sometimes you just thin*
■ there aint enough crazy Titles to ga round and
that when they end that will be the finish of
Pictures.
But really the whole business is flourishing
end weddings were never more at a premium,
and Divorces permeats the air. High Powered
Roadsters are skitting here and yon, Beach
Houses are closed and the sand is covering up
the old Bottles. There will be very little to
recognize the old place in a few weeks. It and
Wall Street are two businesses you cant explain.
(Copyright,, 1922.)
> , • . ,• .. ...
Coal Mine Explosions.’ ‘
A REVIEW of the causes of coal mine ex
plosions in the Unlteci States during the
fiscal year ended June 38 showed that 14 of Hie
30 explosions had electrical origins. Os the 340
fatalities rksuttlag <MU «htoe*'e*tfloftibnfc' &82
wrtte doe to t&e AleetHwiltgroup Jiwm'tbl* a nit,'