Science: Cosmic Clearance

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should receive a few more rays than the back of the planet, just as a child riding a carousel in the rain should be struck by more drops in front than in back. This small daily variation in the cosmic rays has actually been observed, so Dr. Compton agrees they must come from the remotest depths of space. What is their scientific importance? 1) A cosmic ray impact led to the discovery of the positive electron, a fundamental particle of matter. 2) The geographic distribution of the rays facilitates study of Earth's magnetic field. 3) For laboratory work cosmic rays provide atomic bullets thousands of times more powerful than any produced by man. 4) Their behavior at high voltages has already indicated a deficiency of electrodynamic theory which must be rectified. 5) Since about 30 pass through the human body every second, they may have some effect on life & death.

Controversy Closed. Dr. Millikan was among the packed throng which heard Dr. Compton last week in St. Louis. He did not rise, when the speaker had finished, to challenge his conclusions or even to ask a question. Impartial observers were therefore ready to write off their classic controversy as closed, to call it a cosmic clearance. If Dr. Millikan still cherishes the conviction that most of the cosmic rays are photons, he stands almost alone. Three years ago he remarked that if he ever wanted to change his mind, he hoped he would not be pilloried. He has not been pilloried.

Elephant Toes. When Arthur Compton was 10 he wrote a monograph on why some elephants are three-toed, others five-toed, explaining why he found his view at variance with that of other authorities. His mother concealed her amusement. When she recalled the incident with a smile many years later, her famed son replied: "Mother, if you had laughed at me then you would have killed my interest in research."

The family into which Arthur Compton was born 43 years ago in Wooster, Ohio, is something for students of heredity and environment to cluck over. The father is Elias Compton, Ph.D., D.D., Presbyterian clergyman, longtime professor of philosophy and psychology at the College of Wooster. The mother is Otelia Catherine Augspurger Compton, sprig of a German Mennonite family, who three years ago got an LL.D. for being "wife and mother of the Comptons." The parents did not try to choose careers for their four children but encouraged their natural bents. ''We used the Bible," said Father Elias, "and common sense."

Hardened by summers in the Michigan woods, the boys distinguished themselves in Wooster athletics. Karl kicked the longest field goal in Wooster history. He grew up to be president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, chairman of President Roosevelt's Science Advisory Board, a burning advocate of Federal aid to science. In St. Louis last week, as incoming president of the A. A. A. S., he decried the AAA (see p. 12), urged that new industrial uses be found for agricultural products.

Wilson Martindale Compton, Ph.D., onetime professional baseballer. onetime economics professor at Dartmouth, is Washington contact man for the lumber industry.