Tuesday, October 16, 1973
5
Theory of Black Hole Destruction Ridiculous, Two Professors Say
By ALICE COSTELLO
Enron Staff Reporter
Two University of Kansas professors said this week that a recently proposed theory that a "black hole" had devastated a wide region of Siberia June 30, 1988, was
Black holes are stars at least 1.8 times the mass of the sun, that have exhausted their sources of nuclear energy. Without outflowing energy to counter the inward pressure of their own weight, these stars themselves by the force of their own gravity.
TWO PHYSICISTS, A. A. Jackson IV and D. K. Ferguson, presented the theory of the black hole-Earth connection.
The stars become so small and dense that they are only a few miles across, and their gravitational field is so intense that no light waves can be reflected from their surfaces or pass close by them. Their existence has been predicted by the relativity theory.
U.S. . . .
From Page One
SYRIAN COMMUNIQUES gave few details on the tank battles along the Damascus road and for the fourth day ignored the Israeli advance into Syria beyond the cease-fire lines drawn at the end of the 1967 war.
Egypt said its Sinai commandos inflicted heavy losses in men and equipment when they stormed the Israel position after behind Israeli lines in predawn darkness.
In a political move, Iraq urged all Arab states to increase pressure on Jordan's King Hussein to open a third Arab war front along the 250-mile Jordan River cease-fire
Ira's rulig Baath Party newspaper Al Baath said Jordan's "token" forces sent to the aid of Syria were no substitute for full Jordanian forces, along the border and disregard Israel's forces.
There was no immediate indication here that Hussein would bow to Arab pressure.
in the September 14 issue of the British journal, Nature. Calculations for the theory were made at the Center for Relativity Theory at the University of Texas in Austin.
The pair theorized that a black hole, smaller than a grain of sand but weighing at least a million billion tons and traveling from the Sun to the Earth in central Siberia near the Stony Tunguska River. Trees at the site were seared and blown over for a radius of 20 miles or more. A pillar of smoke at least 10 miles high could be seen 250 miles away in K仁ersk, U.S.S.R. Shock waves were projected as far as London and Washington.
THE TWO PHYSICISTS suggested that the black hole struck the earth at a 30 degree angle, penetrated the earth and entered into other side somewhere in the North Atlantic.
They said the black hole theory explained why the object, which was referred to as the Tunguska meteorite, didn't leave any craters or identifiable meteorite residue.
"The assertion that it could have been caused by a black hole is ridiculous," said David Beard, chairman of the department of physics and astronomy.
Beard said the event that leveled the forest could have been a comet, but it was probably a fireball, a very large meteor coming through the atmosphere.
BEARD ALSO SAID if an object such as a black hole had collided with the earth, the earth would have been ripped completely out of its orbit.
"A black hole sucks up matter," he said.
A good deal of earth, if not all of it, could be sucked in.
Gordon Wiseman, professor of physics and astronomy, said if a black hole had collided with the Earth, there would have been a disruption of the entire solar system.
Wiseman agreed with Beard and added that the black hole couldn't have been the size of a grain of sand. He said it must have had a much greater mass than the sun. He defined mass as the quantity of matter of an object.
NOT ALL THE professors interviewed disagreed with the theory. Stephen Shawl, assistant professor of astronomy and phylogenetic study, held kide ideas interesting and intriguing.
"I haven't heard any substantial arguments against it," he said.
He also disagreed with Beard and
A short section on the Tunguska meteorite was included in the book, "Between the Planets," by Fletcher Watson. Photographs showed the seared and leveled forest and also the craters left by the object that hit Siberia.
Wiseman and said that theoretically a black hole could have been infinitely small.
FLETCHER SAID that a 1927 expedition led by a Russian scientist named Kulik found great devastation and at least 10 craters running from 40 to 20 feet across.
During a later expedition in 1930, Kuluck found rock-floor and fused quartz containment grains of nickel-iron under one crater, which Fletcher said lent partial rock from the laboratory. Jackson and Ryan, however, have said that there were no craters at the site.
"He knows what he's talking about, but he doesn't try to impress us with his knowledge, which he could," one student savs.
Mertes has been teaching at KU since 1960, when he received his Ph.D. degree in medicinal chemistry from the University of Minnesota. Mertes is a native of Chicago. He received his B.S. in pharmacy from the University of Texas and completed his M.S. at the University of Texas.
He is an easy-going, pipe-smoking man who enjoys the outdoors. He favors any sports or activities that allow him to spend time in the open, especially skiing.
From Page One
HE IS VARIOUSLY described by his students as "fantastic," "outstanding," and "excellent."
Mertes . . .
SUA FILMS SUA FILMS SUA FILMS SUA FILMS SUA
Mertes' stay at KU has been interrupted only once. It was in 1898, when he spent a week with the University of Chicago.
SUA Special Films
THE HIDDEN FORTRESS
directed by Akira Kurosawa starring Toshiro Mifune
Monday, Oct. 29
7:30 Woodruff Auditorium
75c
SUA Science Fiction
BARBARELLA
starring Jane Fonda
7:30 Woodruff Auditorium
Tuesday, Oct. 16
75C
SUA Classical Films
7:00 & 9:30
Friday, Oct. 19
PAUL NEWMAN
HENRY FONDA 'LLE REEM RICK
MICHAEL SARRAZIN
"Sometimes
a Great Notion"
A University Picture
2:00:43 30:7 00:9 30
Saturday, Oct. 20
NINOTCHKA
Universal/Newman Foreman Picture TECHNICIAN OR PAWMISSION **PG**
SUAPopular Films
SUA Film Society
Mrs. Boyd died in a hospital here Monday morning following a long illness. She was 96.
the state's Republican National committee, McDill "Huck" Boyd.
KINOTCHKA directed by Greta Lubitsch starring Greta Garbo
AIR MAIL directed by John Ford
Wednesdav. Oct. 17
Mrs. Boyd, editor of the Phillips County Review in Phillipsburg, was selected Kansas of the Year in 1959, and Kansas Mother of the Year in 1965.
Services Thursday For Mamie A. Boyd
directed by John Ford
7:30 & 9:15
Woodruff Auditorium
"I don't know that there aren't other businesses or persons doing this. We'd like to do that," he said.
"That's not the way we handle things," he said. "A letter from us would be on letterhead and we would never have the person pay directly to the firm.
Tuesday. Oct. 16
She and Frank Boyd were married in 1904 while they were seniors at Kansas State University. The following year they moved to Phillipsburg to work together on the Review, and in 1907 they purchased the newspaper.
MRS. BOYD ASSUMED full control of the family newspaper business when Frank died in 1947, directing publication of the New York Times and the Jewell County Record at Mankato.
CONCORDIA (AP)—Services are scheduled Thursday for Mrs. Frank (Mamie Alexander) Boyd, well-known Kansas newspaper woman and mother of
7:30 & 9:30
The business, a restaurant, promised not to send out more letters, Berkwitz said. He said the letters were on plain stationery with "county attorney" typed in.
Douglas County Atty. David Berkowitz said yesterday that at least one local business had sent letters purporting to be from the county attorney to customers who were in town and requested that they instructed the customers to make restitution directly to the firm. Berkowitz said.
Business Mails Fake Letters To Customers
IN 1967 THE WAS awarded the William Allen White Foundation award for journalistic merit, and in 1966 received the McKinney Award for outstanding newspaper women given by the National Newspaper Association.
Services will be at 10:30 a.m. Thursday in the United Methodist Church in Mankato and at 2:30 p.m. at the Presbyterian Church in Shippingsburg. Burial will be in Phillipsburg.
G,SUA FILMS SUA FILMS SUA FILMS SUA FILMS SU/
ARE YOU OLD ENOUGH TO SEE . . .
A Film by Pier Paolo Pasolini.
"The Decameron"
?
K. U. FILM SOCIETY Thursday, Oct. 18 7:30-9:30 Woodruff Auditorium
the institute for Biochemistry and Organic Biochemistry.
Mertes says the academic atmosphere there was repressive.
"Faculty and research appointments are political as well as academic, and how the successful and renowned people can accommodate the two is beyond me."
Mertes was in Czechoslovakia during the six-month period when the country enjoyed a free press before the Russian invasion of August, 1968. "It was incredible," says Mertes. "I watched the explosion of ideas that had been suppressed for 20 years." That
was a more valuable experience than the research."
MERTES SAYS he thinks KU students have definitely changed since he began teaching in 1960. "They've matured continuous much better, questions that they did them."
"They're a lot more intelligent than we were. Their parents are better educated than my parents and their children will be better educated than they are.
"Our job is to educate people to do things better than we did. We don't educate people to make money, but to have a better life mentally and physically."
FOOTBALL FANS
"You won't want to miss the KANSAS vs. NEBRASKA game Oct. 20 in Lincoln."
OR
"the KANSAS vs. OKLAHOMA game Nov. 17 in Norman."
That's why we arranged for you:
- Reserved seat tickets in the K.U. section
- Roundtrip transportation via motorcoach
- Continental breakfast of a fresh roll or doughnut and either milk or orange juice
- ice and mix on board the motorcoach
- A Maupintour Tour Escort to accompany you roundtrip.
$28.80
NEBRASKA
TOUR
PER PERSON
OKLAHOMA TOUR
$32.00 PER PERSON
HURRY!! Limited Space Available/First-Come Basis
Maupintour travel service
TELEPHONE
843-1211
4 Locations:
900 Massachusetts
The Mall;
Kansas Union
Hillcrest Center
Towle, a 6'3", 228 pound junior linebacker from Overland Park, was credited with 14 tackles and a key intercept over Kansas State 35 in victory over Kansas State Saturday.
ACME Salutes Player of the Week
STEVE TOWLE
For Outstanding Play in the Kansas State Game
ACME DRY CLEANERS and LAUNDERERS
In by 10—Out by 4
10% Discount on "Cash & Carry"
HILLCREST DOWNTOWN MALLS
925 Iowa 1111 Massachusetts 711 West 23rd