Word: planet
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Back when H. G. Wells was writing science fiction stories, trips to the moon and solar system planets made pretty sensational reading. But science fiction has grown up to the extent that Wells' stories are about as exciting as the Ptolemaic system of the Universe. There are whole new planet systems, and a remarkable array of space gadgets, and an amazing repetition of plots...
...many such half-seen visions of Mars is built the theory of its "canals," presumably built by intelligent beings. Skillful and honorable observers have seen a network of fine, straight lines crisscrossing the planet. Others, just as competent, have seen nothing of the sort, and the canal system drawn by one man seldom resembles the system drawn by another. Few modern astronomers accept the canals unreservedly, but most of them admit that there is something extraordinary on the face of Mars. They yearn to know exactly what...
Astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, who spotted the planet Pluto (1930), is looking for a nearer and even more elusive object: a second satellite of the earth. Since he refuses to give details and refers questioners to Army Ordnance-in Washington, it is fair to assume that the famous rocket-men who work for Army Ordnance are interested in the project. They may want merely to know what opposition from nature their rockets are apt to encounter when they climb deep into space. Or they may have a more ambitious interest: a nearby, natural satellite might be a more convenient base...
...story (TIME, Dec. 14.) Adds Campbell: "The Sudanese are not peculiar in their indifference to affairs beyond their borders. When you are in Accra, it is almost impossible to discover what is happening next door in Nigeria. When you move over to Lagos, you might be on another planet from Accra. Almost no news comes out of the Belgian Congo, French Africa or Portuguese Africa. If you want to find out what is happening there, you have to go in person...
...trades, first announced the formula that stress set up within an elastic body is proportional to the strain to which the body is subjected by an applied load. He also partially anticipated Newton's law of gravity, published original discoveries about fossils and the rotation of the planet Jupiter, invented the double barometer and the universal joint, and worked out a practical system of semaphore telegraphy...