The sun, and the solar system with it, is moving through space with a speed of over a hundred and thirty miles a second, towards a point in the direction of the constellation Draco, the Dragon, which partly encircles the north pole. This is one of the conclusions reached from recent experiments by Prof. Dayton C. Miller, of the Case School of Applied Science in Cleveland, and described by him in a recent radio talk given through station WCAP, under the auspices of Science Service and the National Research Council. The experiments of Prof. Miller have been made at the Mt. Wilson Observatory in California since March, 1921, and involve the use of a delicate instrument called the interferometer and invented by one of Prof. Millers predecessors, Dr. A. A. Michelson, now professor of physics at the University of Chicago. When the experiment was first performed by Prof. Michelson in 1887, an effort was made to detect the motion of the earth through the ether, which is supposed to pervade all space, and to be the medium through which light and similar forms of radiation are transmitted. However, though the apparatus was delicate enough to detect the expected motion, only a negligible drift was found, and one of the ultimate results of the effort to explain this anomaly was the Einstein theory of relativity.In 1905, Prof. Miller, and the late Prof. Edward W. Morley, who collaborated in the original set of experiments, repeated them on a hill 200 feet high near Cleveland, and found a slight effect, but nothing further was done until 1921 when the present series was started at Mt. Wilson, more than a mile above sea level. These have resulted in what is interpreted as a marked drift of the ether and the explanation offered has been that under conditions such as those in Cleveland, and at sea level, the ether tends to be dragged along, but on a mountain top, there is nothing to obstruct it, and so it drifts by.The general direction and amount of the drift has been determined by Prof. Miller by comparing measurements made at different times of the day and year. In the series of experiments which he conducted last year, Pro. Miller stated, over 100,000 readings of the instrument were made. "This required," he said, "that I should walk, in the dark, in a small circle, for a total distance of 100 miles, while making the readings."The general motion of the earth, and the rest of the solar system, which Prof. Miller* finds is in good agreement with measurements made by astronomers of the motion, and is towards a point in the sky having the right ascension, the celestial equivalent of longitude, of 262 degrees, and a declination, which corresponds to latitude, of 68 degrees north. Other determinations of the motion and its direction have been made by measurements of the motions of the stars in the sky, and of the star clusters. "These three determinations of the absolute motion of the system," said Dr. Miller, "are all in the same general direction and lie within a circle having a radius of 26 degrees. The assumed velocity of a hun...
