Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Annual Report of the Director of the Mount Wilson Solar Observatory: Extracted From Year Book No. 16, for the Year 1917, Pp. 199 to 235
The far-reaching in?uences of the war, so disastrous in their effect upon the progress of science in Europe, are clearly re?ected in the Observatory's history for the past year. The resulting diminution in research activity, however, has not been serious. The Director has been called upon to devote nearly all of his time to the organization and work of the National Research Council, which since February has served as the Department of Science and Research of the Council of National Defense. Fortunately he was able to leave the Observatory's work in the hands of the Assistant Director, who deserves full credit for its successful conduct during the greater part of the year.
The prolonged activity of the sun, hardly yet at its maximum, has afforded excellent opportunity for a variety of work. Sun-spots are so numerous that an average of nearly 40 (including the members of groups) have been observed daily for magnetic phenomena, while other evidences of solar unrest have been on a corresponding scale. The successful continuation of laboratory researches on the Stark effect has provided means for another test of the presence of free electricity in sun-spots, but the outcome, as in previous years, has been negative. Thus, while we can hardly doubt that the intense magnetic fields in sun-spots are due to electrically charged particles whirling in vortices, the full explanation of the effect is yet to be developed. The same may be said of the nature of the spot vortex. The association in pairs of sun-spots of opposite magnetic polarity remains a phenomenon of almost unbroken occurrence and undoubted significance. But the simple hypothesis that the two members (single or multiple) of the group represent the extremities of a half-ring vortex, while fruitful as a guide to research, can hardly be taken at its face value, in view of the complex polarity phenomena presented by large and active Spot groups; so long as this hypothesis remains useful in suggesting new lines of work, however, it will not be wholly discarded.
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