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Show I Well, WW Do Vou kww 2 fun, games and knowledge by MARTHA GLAUBER SHAPP. Editor, The New Book of Knowledge trifles the ionosphere layers of air about 60 to 200 miles above us. The ionosphere layers lay-ers reflect radio waves back to the earth. Do you know what a world without with-out trrcs ivotdd be like? Even in today's world of oncrete and steel, atomic energy en-ergy and moon walks, can you imagine how life would change if trees and their products should suddenly disappear? dis-appear? Look out! There goes the chair you're sitting on. The pages of this newspaper are disappearing. Your books are floating away. Your pencils pen-cils have vanished. Where is your baseball bat, the film for your father's camera) and your sister's plastic doll? There are no more plums and pears and cherries, no more almond cookies and apple pies. All of these things and thousands more come from trees still important in our modern world. Do you know about baseball in Japan? Baseball was introduced into in-to Japan nearly 100 years ago by a Tokyo engineer who had lived in the United States. The game has grown steadily in popularity, and today to-day Japan has two six-team leagues the Central and the Pacific. There are nearly 9,000,000 fans who attend games and more than double that number who watch the games on television. American Ameri-can baseball expressions have drifted into the language "strike" is strikn; "out" is outo; and the umpire starts the game with praybamt for "play ball." A number of American former major league players, including the Cardinals' Don Blasingame and the Dodgers' Don New-combe, New-combe, have played with Japanese clubs. What is the ionosphere? The distance that radio waves can travel is determined deter-mined largely by the sun. The sun sends its energy down to the earth. This energy elec- There are layers of the ionosphere high in the sky and layers low in the sky. The more intensely a layer is ionized or electrified the more it bends the path of a wave, or reflects it. Bending, or reflection, of waves also depends on the wavelength. Long waves are usually sent out as ground waves. Medium waves are sent out as a combination of ground and sky waves. Short waves are sky waves that go up so far in the ionosphere that they bounce for long distances. dis-tances. The very shortest waves (microwaves) go right through the ionosphere and rarely return to earth at all. lYhat is the Kohinoor diamond? The Kohinoor is the most famous diamond in. the world. The stone's long and tragic history was set down in 1526 by Sultan Baber, who founded the Mogul dynasty in India. |