Deletion from original chapter 4 now chapter 10

EARTH FLOATS IN ELECTRICAL SEA By Alton L. Blakeslee - Associated Press Science Writer

BOULDER, COLO., Oct. 12, 1957 (AP) - High overhead floats a fantastic electrical sea.

It girdles the earth, reaches at least 150 miles deep. It writhes with storms and savage winds. Powerful electro jet currents course through it.

It is pulled by tides, pocked by peculiar clouds, bombarded by cosmic rays. Created by the sun's cruelest rays, this sea is the ionosphere, a vast belt of electrons and electrified atoms or ions. It begins 60 miles up, goes at least 200 miles high.

In sparsest form it apparently reaches thousands of miles into desolate space. It's a shield between you and a deadly sun.

Were it not there, absorbing the sun x-rays and most power ultraviolet light, life on earth would perish.

Were it not there, you might never hear a radio. Short wave radio communication depends upon bouncing or reflecting radio waves back to earth from this electrical sea.

Strange quirks in the ionspheres sometimes perform magic. Miami police calls are heard in California.

Or a picture from a TV station hundreds of miles away suddenly appears on the sceen.

Exploring this sea is a major activity of the International Geophysical Year, a co-operative 64-nation effort to learn more about our earth, sun and space. Fingers of radio itself are a prime method of ionsphere exploring. Literally thousands of times a day over the world special radio beams are darting up and bouncing back to measure heights, intensities and other changing peculiarities of the ionosphere.

When the full story is pieced together, scientists hope to answer some puzzles of the high atmosphere and find new or improved ways of putting the ionosphere to human service.

The "radio" fingers and other techniques already have disclosed much of the story, explains Robert W. Knecht, a project leader in sun-earth relationships at the National Bureau of Standards Boulder laboratories.

In reality the ionosphere is our outer atmosphere of ultra-thin air. X-rays and ultraviolet light from the sun rip into molecules of oxygen and nitrogen, tearing out their electrons, electrifying billions times billions of atoms.

Usually the ionosphere has distinct layers.

About 60 miles high is the E layer, then the denser, F-1 region at about 120 miles, the F-2 layer at 200 miles.

The "E" layer reflects low-frequency or long radio waves. Higher frequencies or shorter waves penetrate through it, bounce back from higher layers. Sufficiently high frequencies barrel right on through into space. Usually this is what happens with TV signals.

During IGY, nearly 200 special radio-sounding stations from pole to pole are intently exploring the ionosphere. Each shoots up pulses of radio waves, sweeping through a quick range from long to short waves in 15 seconds, then timing and recording the echoes from different layers.

A few will make continuous recordings of the seething electrical sea.

For the ionosphere, far from being a static shell, changes, minute by minute, hour by hour, season by season. It is a sensitive link between events on the sun and earth, Knecht points out.

Great flares or explosions on the sun sometimes create a much enhanced D layer about 40 to 50 miles up. This absorbs rather than reflects radio waves, producing radio blackouts and interference. Other sunflares have no effect, for reasons not yet understood.

NOTED PHYSICIST ANNOUNCES NEW ENERGY SOURCE

Nickola Testa, the renowned physicist and inventor who developed the great AC motor, the fundamental principle of radio, and the practical transmission of alternating power foretold the discovery, many years ago of a hitherto unknown source of unlimited energy, "so practical that the machinery to harness it will last 500 years, and so basic that it will undo existing theories. "

"They called me crazy, in 1896," said Dr. Testa, "when I announced the discovery of cosmic rays. Again and again they jeered when I discovered something new and then years later saw that I was right. Now I suppose it will be the same old story when I say I have discovered a hitherto unknown source of energy, unlimited energy, that can be harnessed.

"The initial cost will be relatively big. After that hardly anything and unlimited power for the asking."

Dr. Testa has given the world the arc lighting system, the Testa coil and rotating field principle for alternate current and innumerable other electrical devices.

Dr. Testa did not live to reduce a practical application the discovery he referred to above.

"ASTRONOMY," by Robert H. Baker, Ph.D. Professor of Astronomy, University of Illinois, page 303:

Another problem relates to the apparent lavish expenditure of this radiation. Of all the energy that pours forth from the sun, less than one part in 200 million is intercepted by the planets and their satellites, The remainder spreads through interstellar space with little chance, so far as we know, of being recovered. The suggestion that the sun shines only in the directions of material that can intercept it makes an appeal from the point of view of economy, but appears to have little else to recommend it. It would seem that nature is squandering its resources of energy so prodigally that it must end in bankruptcy; but doubtless we have at present an imperfect account of the situation. "

Foundations of the Universe, Luckiesh, General Electric, pp. 41-43 Astronomy, Robert H. Baker, Ph.D., page 303

The great success of the atomistic principles as it is involved in the kinetic theory of matter was one of the wonders of the modern scientific age. It is to be expected that there will be found other applications equally fascinating and promising. It is now being pressed further into the service of explaining the structure of matter

When Maxwell (1873) propounded the electro-magnetic theory of light (radiation), his achievement was epochal. The exact manner in which the Radiant Energy traversed space was not known, and the next epochal event was the founding by Planck (1900) of the quantum theory. Here we have the atomistic principle applied to energy instead of being confined to the material of the universe as it had been. In other words, in the quantum theory we have the atomistic idea applied to physical processes. We now have the atom of matter, the atom (electron) of electricity, and the atom (quantum) of action (a product of energy and time). Planck assumed the emission of radiation (from the sun, a lamp filament, etc.) to occur discontinuously. He conceived elements of energy of equal magnitude analogous to the equality of electrons, or atoms of a given element. Radiation or Radiant Energy is emitted of various wave lengths or frequencies which must be taken into account in laws of radiation ... now the physicist uses quanta as commonly as he does electrons and atoms and molecules. Bodies are built of molecules, the molecules of atoms, and the atoms of electrons (and protons) etc. Here we see the atomistic principle applied to "material" (matter) and then to electricity. Finally, a physical process - the radiation omitted by the electrons - is divided into quanta. With such pictures of the Universe being considered we may cease to be surprised at anything, but our interest and admiration will grow. Will we ever get to the final foundation?