SCIENCE

Percival? Cronos?

The inhabitants of Earth learned last week that there is another planet, besides the eight they knew about, revolving around the Sun as the earth does. A few of Earth's inhabitants had known the news for some time. The late Percival Lowell (1855-1916), rich traveler turned astronomer, elder brother of President Abbott Lawrence Lowell of Harvard University and of the late poetess Amy Lowell (1874-1925), in 1915 had predicted the existence of another member of the Planet System on its outer fringe.

For many years the astronomers at the Lowell Observatory, which Percival Lowell built with his own money at clear-aired Flagstaff, Ariz., have been pointing their telescopes to the path in the skies where he had said his planet would be moving. The night of last Jan. 21, Clyde W. Tombaugh, 24, an assistant at the observatory, saw a strange blotch of light on a new plate. He hastily took the photograph to Vesto Melvin Slipher, director of the observatory. They were quite excited. Here visibly was Percival Lowell's proof. Night after night they rephotographed the planet. Pictures showed that it moved slightly in the same direction as the other planets. This was additional proof. They might have shouted out their find at once. But they deliberately saved the news until March 13, the day Percival Lowell was born.

Naming the New Planet is a problem. Percival Lowell's wife, who still lives in Beacon Street, Boston, last week suggested Percival. She rejected Lowell as being fixed to too many notable institutions--the Lowell Observatory, the Lowell Institute, the City of Lowell, etc. etc. Harlow Shapley, director of the Harvard Observatory, suggested Cronos, son of Uranus and father of Zeus. Astrologers recommended variously Isis, Vulcan, Lilith. Choice lies with the Lowell Observatory.

Television Leaves the Laboratory

A wholesale grocer and a newspaper prepared last week to operate the first commercial television service in the U. S. Edward G. McDougall of Libby McNeill & Libby, food firm, has long been a television enthusiast. Like other television amateurs he has been impatient because the country's 26 experimental stations have not reached a large public because amateurs have had difficulty in buying proper receiving sets. He consulted William S. Hedges, president of the Chicago Daily News radio station WMAQ. He said that if the Daily News would construct a television broadcasting station, Libby McNeill & Libby would pay for the broadcasting. Last week the station, W9XAP, was practically finished (cost $30,000). It is an experimental station, because the Government will not yet issue commercial television permits. Shrewdly did Mr. Hedges circumvent the rules. He has hooked W9XAP to WMAQ. This week the first programs will go out.

Western Television Corp. (Chicago), Jenkins Television Corp. (Jersey City), Short Wave & Television Laboratories (Boston) have been preparing sets for market. Within 30 days after the opening of the Daily News's station, Western Television reported last week it would have 1,200 sets distributed in the Chicago vicinity, selling at from $125 to $200 each. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.