Chapter 6 Chapter Six

If ever there was a continent that could be as proud of a part of itself as a father is of one of his children, it is the United States of America.If there was one state in the fifty-one states of the United States (their fifty-one stars dotted the corner of the Union flag) that could be proud of a city, it was Virginia.If there is one city in Viktoria that can be proud of its son, it is Weston, which has just made a resounding statement that will occupy this century's annals of astronomy. Discovery of importance! At least that's the unanimous opinion of Westonites. It is not difficult to imagine that the papers, at least those of Weston, published glowing articles on Mr. Dean Forsyth and Dr. Hudson.Is not the glory of these two famous citizens also the glory of the whole city?Which resident has not shared a share of the glory?Will not Weston's name be inextricably linked with this discovery?

The currents of opinion flowed so easily among these American inhabitants that the articles in their praise had an immediate effect.The reader, therefore, will not be surprised if we tell him that from this day onwards crowds of loud and fanatical inhabitants flock to Morris Road and Elizabeth Road, and if he still does, let him take our word for it that .None of them knew of the rivalry between Mr. Forsyth and Mr. Hudson, so there can be no doubt that the frenzied crowd always bound the two together in such cases.Because for everyone, their names are inseparable and will be linked forever.It was such an indivisible whole that historians thousands of years later might say it was a double name for the same person!

Time will tell whether this supposition is true, but for now Mr. Dean Forsyth has to go to the platform of the Round Tower, and Mr. Sidney Hudson to the platform of the Square Tower. Come on, thank you all for your cheers.The crowd shouted to them, and they bowed in thanks. But a spectator will find that what they show is not the kind of complete happiness.A shadow was cast over their victory, like the sun by a cloud.The former squinted at the square tower, while the latter squinted at the round tower.Everyone saw another person thanking the people of Weston for the applause, and each felt that the applause for himself was not as neat as the applause for the other party.

In fact, these applause are all the same.The crowd saw both astronomers alike.Dean Forsyth was no less cheered than Dr. Huddleson, and vice versa, and the same people went to both. What was going on on Francis Gordon and Mitz's side, Mrs. Huddleson's and Jenny's and Lulu's side, as the cheers shook every block?Were they worried about the unwelcome consequences of the Boston Observatory's chronicle to the press?What had been kept secret until then has now been revealed.Mr. Forsyth and Mr. Hudson, officially learned of their rivalry.Is there no reason to think that both of them will have a claim - if not profit at least honor - to the discovery, and that a state of affairs, for both families, may thus arise which is very regrettable? ?

It is not difficult to imagine Mrs. Hudson and Jenny's feelings when they saw people parading to their doorsteps.The doctor got on the platform, but they didn't want to show their faces on the balcony at all.The two watched the ominous procession anxiously.If Mr. Forsyth and Mr. Huddleson, driven by foolish jealousy, should vie for the shooting star, would the public not speak for one or the other?Both will have their supporters when, amid the excitement of the city, the betrothed couple, this Romeo and this Juliet, in a game that makes two families Capulets and Montagues What will happen to the family's academic quarrel?

As for Lulu, she was furious and wanted to open the window to reprimand these people.She only wished that there was no fire hose to water this group of people, drowning their cheers in the torrent of cold water.Her mother and sister had a hard time calming down the fiery little girl.It was the same in front of the house in Elizabeth Road, and Francis Gordon would have liked to be damned with these ecstatic people, who would only add fuel to an already tense situation.He was as reticent as they were, while Mr. Forsyth and Omicron showed themselves at the Round Tower with the most hideous vanity.

Just as Mrs. Hudson had to restrain Lulu's quick temper, Francis Gordon had to calm Mitz's anger.She simply said that she would wipe out this group of people, which was not something she could laugh at.There is no doubt that the thing she handles with such skill every day will swing fearfully.However, it may be impolite to greet people cheering you with a broom! "Ah! my boy," cried the old maid. "Are all these yowlings mad?" "I was about to think so," replied Francis Gordon. "It's all for a big rock swimming in the sky!" "As you said, Mitz."

"A shooting star!" "A shooting star, Mitz," said Francis Gordon, trying not to laugh out loud. "That's exactly what I said: a shooting star," said Mitz confidently. "If only it could fall on them and crush a bunch of people! . . . What can it be used for?" "Used to discord families," declared Francis Gordon.Then a louder cheer broke out. But why couldn't these two former friends agree to share their bolides equally?There is no material benefit or monetary benefit involved, and what is involved is only a purely Platonic honor issue.So why can't this discovery be made a joint discovery, and let their two names be linked with this discovery until the end of the world?why?The reason is simple, because it is related to self-esteem and vanity.And when pride and vanity are a matter, who dares to boast that he can make men reason?

But is seeing this meteor so glorious?Is this not purely by chance?If the bolide hadn't been so obliging, crossing the field of view of this telescope just as Mr. Dean Forsyth and Mr. Sidney Huddleson brought their eyes to the eyepiece, it would have given these two a little self-esteem. Over-the-top astronomers see? Besides, every day and every night, aren't hundreds of these bolides, asteroids, and meteorites passing through the sky?Is it even possible to count the hordes of fireballs that streak at will across the dark sky?600 million, that is, according to scholars, the number of meteors that pass through the earth's atmosphere in one night, that is to say, 1.2 billion in 24 hours.These luminous bodies are therefore innumerable, and according to Newton, between ten and fifteen million of them are visible to the naked eye.

"That is to say," noted the Punch, the only newspaper in Weston that made the matter a joke, "that it is no more important to find a bolide in the sky than to find a grain of wheat in a cornfield." Difficult, with reason: Those two astronomers are exaggerating a bit about a discovery that doesn't deserve our hats off." But if the satirical paper, The Punch, didn't miss an opportunity to use its knack for being funny, its more serious counterparts did not follow its lead, seizing the opportunity to show off. to the science they have just learned that would make the most respectable astronomers jealous.

"Kepler believed that bolides were gases that escaped from the earth," said the Weston Standard, "but it seems closer to the fact that these phenomena are only some meteorites, because people always find violent meteorites on meteorites." Burning traces. In Plutarch's time, people have regarded them as some mineral-bearing celestial bodies, which were attracted by the earth's gravity as they passed the earth, and fell to the soil of our planet. Contrast bolides Studies have shown that their composition is not in the slightest different from the minerals we know, and on the whole they contain about one-third of the simple element types. Yet what a variety of combinations of these elements show! Bolides The components of meteors are sometimes as small as iron filings, sometimes as large as peas or sticks, and are so hard that when you smash them, you can see the crystalline state of the material. Some meteors are even composed entirely of unoxidized iron in its natural state, sometimes mixed with A little nickel." What the Weston Standard tells its readers is absolutely true.At the same time, the "Western Daily" emphasized that scholars throughout the ages have always attached importance to the study of meteorites. It said: "Did not Diogenes Apollonius speak of an incandescent stone as large as a mill-wheel? It fell near Aegus Portamos, to the horror of the inhabitants of Thrace If one such bolide fell on the bell tower of St. Andrew's Church, it would destroy the whole bell tower. Speaking of which, please allow us to list a few meteorites that came from deep space and fell to the ground when they entered the gravitational range of the earth : Before the epoch, the thunder stone worshiped as Siberia, the mother of all gods, in Galasi and later transported to Rome; the meteorite found in Syria and used to sacrifice the sun god; found in the Numa dynasty Aegis; black meteorites treasured at Mecca; and thunderstones used to make the famous sword of Antal. How many meteorites have been described since the ages and how they fell: Ansi in Alsace The two hundred and sixty-pound stone at Sheim; the metallic black stone the size of a human head that fell on Mount Vaison in Provence; the seventy-two-pound, Sulfur-smelling, meerschaum-like stones; and stones that fell on Rousse in Chartres in 1763, so hot that they cannot be touched. Can we not also list those that fell in 1203? The bolide at Leicester in Normandy? About it, Humbert said: "At one o'clock in the afternoon, when the sky was clear of dust, a fireball was seen moving from southeast to northwest. A few minutes later, From a small black, almost motionless cloud came an explosion lasting five or six minutes, followed by three or four more, and the scene was like musket fire mixed with the drums of countless drums. Each explosion Afterwards, a puff of smoke rushed out of the black cloud. But there was no luminous phenomenon in that area. More than a thousand meteorites landed in an oval-shaped zone. The distance was eleven kilometers. These meteorites were smoking, hot to the touch but not flammable. They were found to be easier to smash in the first few days after falling than later.'” The "Western Daily" continued to speak in this tone for several columns, which at least showed the seriousness of the editors. Other newspapers are not far behind.Now that astronomy is in the headlines, everyone is talking about astronomy.If there is still a Weston person who is not proficient in the Bolide problem after this, it must be that he is too careless. The Weston News added its own material to that provided by the Weston Daily.It looked back at the fireball, which was twice the diameter of the full moon.In 1254, the fireball appeared successively at Hayworth, Darlington, Durham, and Dundee.It flew from one horizon to another without exploding, with a long, golden tail trailing behind it, which looked wide and dense, dazzling against the dark blue sky.The newspaper added that the Heworth bolide did not explode, but that the Bolide discovered by an observer in Castillon, France, on May 14, 1864, did not explode. It's different.Although people only saw the meteor for five seconds, its speed was so fast that it drew a six-degree arc across the sky in such a short time.Its hue was first blue-green, then white and surprisingly bright.It took about three or four minutes from the explosion to hearing the sound, indicating that it was 60 to 80 kilometers away, so the violence of its explosion should have surpassed the most powerful explosion that cannot occur on the ground.As for the size of the bolide calculated from the altitude, its diameter is at least 1,500 feet, and it should be able to travel 130 kilometers per second.This speed is many times higher than the speed at which the earth revolves around the sun. Then came the turn of the Weston Morning Post, and then the Weston Evening Post again on the subject.The latter newspaper focused more on bolides composed almost entirely of iron, of which there are many.It also reminds readers of a bolide of this type found in Siberia, weighing at least 700 kilograms; another in Brazil, weighing 6,000 kilograms; 14,000 kilograms; and finally, another one fell near Durango, Mexico, weighing 19,000 kilograms! In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that some residents of Weston could not help feeling a little apprehensive as they read these passages.The meteor of Mr. Forsyth and Mr. Huddleson, since it was discovered under the conditions known to be, that is, it should be a great distance away, it is likely to be larger in volume than Tucuman. And Durango's Bolide is much bigger.Who knows, maybe it's the same size or bigger than Castillon's meteorite.The diameter of the latter was then estimated at fifteen hundred feet.Can the weight of such a behemoth be imagined?And since the meteor had appeared on Weston's zenith, it meant that Weston was below its orbit.So as long as the track is also circular, it will still pass through the city.Then, it may stop flying for some reason when it passes Weston, and Weston will be hit by an unimaginable impact!Now is the time to tell those who do not know, and to remind those who do, of that dreadful law of kinetic energy, or there will never be another chance.Kinetic energy equals mass times velocity squared.And according to the more frightening law of free fall, for one or two bolides falling from a height of 400 kilometers, when they are about to hit the ground, the speed is nearly 3 kilometers per second! The Weston press did not lose sight of this responsibility, and it is fair to say that the papers never talked so much about mathematical formulas. And so, gradually, a certain fear descended on the city.This dangerous fireball that threatens everyone's safety has become a topic of discussion among people in public places, various circles, and even every household.Especially the women among the residents only dream of the crashed churches and flattened houses.As for the men, they think it is more attractive to shrug their shoulders, but they are not at ease when they shrug their shoulders.It can be said that there are hordes of people guarding Syntagma Square and high-end residential areas day and night.No matter the weather is sunny or cloudy, those observers don't stop for a moment.Never before have the optics dealers sold so many telescopes and other optics, large and small.Never had the sky been so aimed by the restless eyes of the Westonians.Whether the meteor is visible or not, danger is always present, if not every minute. But, everyone will say, this danger also threatens different regions and cities, towns, and villages that the meteor passes through.Yes, it goes without saying.If the bolide orbits the Earth as people imagine, all sites below its orbit will be threatened by its fall.Weston, however, holds the record for the most feared (if you'll accept that ultramodern term) because it was Weston where the bolide was first spotted. One newspaper, however, resisted the terrible contagion.The newspaper has been reluctant to take the matter seriously.Instead, it is hard on Mr. Forsyth and Mr. Hudson, jokingly blaming them for the catastrophe that threatens the city: "What business are these amateurs up to?" said the Punch. "Do they need to tickle the sky with their telescopes and telescopes? They can't keep the sky safe from the stars. Are you kidding me? There are already quite a few scholars who venture into the interstellar space without interest, aren’t there already too many? Those celestial bodies are very shy, and they don’t like people looking at them so closely .Yes, our city is under threat. No one is safe now, and the situation is hopeless. Fire, hail, and whirlwind can all be guarded against, but you guard against a bomb that probably has Weston The fall of a bolide ten times the size of the keep of your castle, try! . . . As long as it explodes when it falls (as is often the case with such things), and the fallout is hot, the whole city will be destroyed Bombarded, even burned. In any event, our dear city would be destroyed, and we should not deny it to ourselves! Run for your lives! Run for your lives! . . . But why don't Mr. Forsyth and Mr. Hudson Ken, who sits quietly on the ground floor of their house, wants to peep at the shooting stars? It's their ignorance that annoys them, it's their evil plots that lure them here. If Weston is destroyed, If it is shattered or burned by this bolide, it is their fault and it is their fault!... Indeed, we ask the truly disinterested readers, that is to say, all the subscribers of Weston's Punch, What is the use of astronomers, astrologers, meteorologists, and other beasts that call home? What good has their work done? . . . To ask this question is to answer it. As for us, we More than ever, our well-known convictions are so perfectly expressed by the indelible words of a Frenchman, the illustrious Brillat-Savarin genius: 'It is more difficult to discover a new dish than to discover A star is better for mankind!' And how Briard-Savarin will scorn these two sinners who, in order to discover a simple fireball, are not afraid to bring the worst disaster to their hometown what!"