Disturbing Sun Read online

medicine. The only thing for which I dogive myself credit was that I asked my patients to keep a detailedrecord of their symptoms taking special care to note the time ofexacerbation--increase in the severity of the symptoms--as accurately aspossible.

  LATHAM. And this gave you a clue?

  NIEMAND. It was the beginning. In most instances patients reported theattack struck with almost the impact of a physical blow. The prodromalsymptoms were usually slight ... a sudden feeling of uneasiness andguilt ... hot and cold flashes ... dizziness ... double vision. Thenthis ghastly sense of depression coupled with a blind insensate rage atlife. One man said he felt as if the world were closing in on him.Another that he felt the people around him were plotting hisdestruction. One housewife made her husband lock her in her room forfear she would injure the children. I pored over these case historiesfor a long time getting absolutely nowhere. Then finally a pattern beganto emerge.

  * * * * *

  LATHAM. What sort of pattern?

  NIEMAND. The first thing that struck me was that the attacks alloccurred during the daytime, between the hours of about seven in themorning and five in the evening. Then there were these coincidences--

  LATHAM. Coincidences?

  NIEMAND. Total strangers miles apart were stricken at almost the samemoment. At first I thought nothing of it but as my records accumulated Ibecame convinced it could not be attributed to chance. A mathematicalanalysis showed the number of coincidences followed a Poissondistribution very closely. I couldn't possibly see what daylight had todo with it. There is some evidence that mental patients are mostdisturbed around the time of full moon, but a search of medicalliterature failed to reveal any connection with the Sun.

  LATHAM. What did you do?

  NIEMAND. Naturally I said nothing of this to my patients. I did,however, take pains to impress upon them the necessity of keeping anexact record of the onset of an attack. The better records they kept themore conclusive was the evidence. Men and women were experiencing nearlysimultaneous attacks of rage and depression all over southernCalifornia, which was as far as my practice extended. One day itoccurred to me: if people a few miles apart could be strickensimultaneously, why not people hundreds or thousands of miles apart? Itwas this idea that prompted me to get in touch with an old colleague ofmine I had known at UC medical school, Dr. Max Hillyard, who was inpractice in Utica, New York.

  LATHAM. With what result?

  NIEMAND. I was afraid the result would be that my old roommate wouldthink I had gone completely crazy. Imagine my surprise and gratificationon receiving an answer by return mail to the effect that he also hadbeen getting an increasing number of patients suffering with the sameidentical symptoms as my own. Furthermore, upon exchanging records we_did_ find that in many cases patients three thousand miles apart hadbeen stricken simultaneously--

  LATHAM. Just a minute. I would like to know how you define"simultaneous."

  NIEMAND. We say an attack is simultaneous when one occurred on the eastcoast, for example, not earlier or later than five minutes of an attackon the west coast. That is about as close as you can hope to time asubjective effect of this nature. And now another fact emerged whichgave us another clue.

  LATHAM. Which was?

  NIEMAND. In every case of a simultaneous attack the Sun was shining atboth New York and California.

  LATHAM. You mean if it was cloudy--

  NIEMAND. No, no. The weather had nothing to do with it. I mean the Sunhad to be above the horizon at both places. A person might undergo anattack soon after sunrise in New York but there would be nocorresponding record of an attack in California where it was still dark.Conversely, a person might be stricken late in the afternoon inCalifornia without a corresponding attack in New York where the Sun hadset. Dr. Hillyard and I had been searching desperately for a clue. Wehad both noticed that the attacks occurred only during the daylighthours but this had not seemed especially significant. Here we hadevidence pointing directly to the source of trouble. It must have someconnection with the Sun.

  LATHAM. That must have had you badly puzzled at first.

  NIEMAND. It certainly did. It looked as if we were headed back to theMiddle Ages when astrology and medicine went hand in hand. But since itwas our only lead we had no other choice but to follow it regardless ofthe consequences. Here luck played somewhat of a part, for Hillyardhappened to have a contact that proved invaluable to us. Several yearsbefore Hillyard had gotten to know a young astrophysicist, HenryMiddletown, who had come to him suffering from a severe case of myositisin the arms and shoulders. Hillyard had been able to effect a completecure for which the boy was very grateful, and they had kept up adesultory correspondence. Middletown was now specializing in radioastronomy at the government's new solar observatory on Turtle BackMountain in Arizona. If it had not been for Middletown's help I'm afraidour investigation would never have gotten past the clinical stage.

  LATHAM. In what way was Middletown of assistance?

  NIEMAND. It was the old case of workers in one field of science beingcompletely ignorant of what was going on in another field. Someday wewill have to establish a clearing house in science instead of keeping itin tight little compartments as we do at present. Well, Hillyard and Ipacked up for Arizona with considerable misgivings. We were afraidMiddletown wouldn't take our findings seriously but somewhat to oursurprise he heard our story with the closest attention. I guessastronomers have gotten so used to hearing from flying saucerenthusiasts and science-fiction addicts that nothing surprises them anymore. When we had finished he asked to see our records. Hillyard hadthem all set down for easy numerical tabulation. Middletown went to workwith scarcely a word. Within an hour he had produced a chart that wassimply astounding.

  * * * * *

  LATHAM. Can you describe this chart for us?

  NIEMAND. It was really quite simple. But if it had not been forMiddletown's experience in charting other solar phenomena it would neverhave occurred to us to do it. First, he laid out a series of aboutthirty squares horizontally across a sheet of graph paper. He datedthese beginning March 1, 1955, when our records began. In each square heput a number from 1 to 10 that was a rough index of the number andintensity of the attacks reported on that day. Then he laid out anotherhorizontal row below the first one dated twenty-seven days later. Thatis, the square under March 1st in the top row was dated March 28th inthe row below it. He filled in the chart until he had an array of dozensof rows that included all our data down to May, 1958.

  When Middletown had finished it was easy to see that the squares ofhighest index number did not fall at random on the chart. Instead theyfell in slightly slanting parallel series so that you could drawstraight lines down through them. The connection with the Sun wasobvious.

  LATHAM. In what way?

  NIEMAND. Why, because twenty-seven days is about the synodic period ofsolar rotation. That is, if you see a large spot at the center of theSun's disk today, there is a good chance if it survives that you willsee it at the same place twenty-seven days later. But that nightMiddletown produced another chart that showed the connection with theSun in a way that was even more convincing.

  LATHAM. How was that?

  NIEMAND. I said that the lines drawn down through the days of greatestmental disturbance slanted slightly. On this second chart the squareswere dated under one another not at intervals of twenty-seven days, butat intervals of twenty-seven point three days.

  LATHAM. Why is that so important?

  NIEMAND. Because the average period of solar rotation in the sunspotzone is not twenty-seven days but twenty-seven point three days. And onthis chart the lines did not slant but went vertically downward. Thecorrelation with the synodic rotation of the Sun was practicallyperfect.

  LATHAM. But how did you get onto the S-Regions?

  NIEMAND. Middletown was immediately struck by the resemblance betweenthe chart of mental disturbance and one he had been plotting over theyears from his radio observations
. Now when he compared the two chartsthe resemblance between the two was unmistakable. The pattern shown bythe chart of mental disturbance corresponded in a striking way with thesolar chart but with this difference. The disturbances on the Earthstarted two days later on the average than the disturbances due to theS-Regions on the Sun. In other words, there was a lag of aboutforty-eight hours between the two. But otherwise they were almostidentical.

  LATHAM. But if these S-Regions of Middletown's are invisible how couldhe detect them?

  NIEMAND. The S-Regions are invisible to the eye through an _optical_telescope, but are detected with ease by a _radio_ telescope. Middletownhad discovered them when he was a graduate student working on radioastronomy in Australia, and he had followed up his researches with themore powerful equipment at Turtle Back Mountain. The formation of anS-Region is heralded by a long series of bursts of a few secondsduration, when the radiation may increase up to several thousand timesthat of the background intensity. These noise storms have been recordedsimultaneously on wavelengths of