Witchery in North Dakota

In the Wild Plum School, near Richardton, N. Dak., Teacher Pauline Rebel and her eight pupils were droning through a dull school day when It began.

In a coal scuttle near the stove, the lignite coal began to stir. Soon lumps of coal popped spontaneously from the bucket and flew about the room. They hit the walls and Pupil Jack Steiner's head. The bucket capsized. The window shades began to smolder. A dictionary, touched by no human hand, started moving. The book case suddenly burst into flame.

By that time Teacher Rebel's pupils, who had watched frozen in their seats, also started jumping. The teacher calmed them by getting them to pick up the quivering coals, then sent for help. School officials who came on the run found the disturb ance subsiding, but swear that lumps of coal were still trembling. Next day State Fire Marshal Charles Schwartz organized a full-dress investigation. Submitted to lie-detector tests, Teacher Rebel and her pupils got a clean bill of truth-telling health. Chemists in the state colleges closely analyzed the coal. They could find nothing out of the way. The coal, the bucket and the dictionary were shipped to the FBI in Washington. The citizens of Richardton decided that the schoolhouse was "bewitched." Blonde Mrs. Rebel thought an anonymous letter-writer who had threatened her life might have had something to do with it.

Disorderly Demon. Such was a strange story that came out of North Dakota last week. By an odd chance, it coincided with publication of a scientific work suggesting that it was remotely possible that Teacher Rebel and her pupils had seen what they said they had seen.

The book: Mr. Tompkins Explores the Atom (Macmillan; $2). Its author: famed, Russian-born Physicist George Gamow, of George Washington University. In a whimsical explanation of the behavior of atoms, Dr. Gamow discusses the mathematical odds against just such an occurrence as was reported in the Wild Plum School.

Theoretically, although the odds are trillions of trillions to one, such spontaneous activity is possible. The notion was first suggested by the late great Physicist James Clerk Maxwell, and physicists speak of it as "Maxwell's Demon." It is based on a fundamental law of thermodynamics known as "the principle of increasing entropy" (i.e., disorder).

In the normal state of matter, according to this law, molecules move in an erratic manner, bumping against other molecules and constantly increasing the disorder. This results in a more or less even distribution of energy (i.e., heat) throughout an object. But it is conceivable, explains Physicist Gamow, that a group of molecules might accidentally arrange themselves in an orderly movement that would upset this normal condition. Thus all the air molecules in a room might collect under a table, leaving the rest of the room a vacuum. Or (a somewhat less unlikely possibility) a group of molecules might fall into an introverted pattern of collisions that would concentrate energy at a particular point. In that case, a bowl of soup might spill itself or a highball might spontaneously begin to boil.

Gamow observes that in a large body such a circumstance would not be likely to occur in billions of years. But on a small scale the chances rapidly rise. Adds he: "Air molecules habitually group themselves somewhat more densely at certain points, giving rise to minute inhomogeneities, called statistical fluctuations of destiny. When the sun's light passes through terrestrial atmosphere, such inhomogeneities cause the scattering of the blue rays of the spectrum, and give to the sky its familiar color. Were these fluctuations of destiny not present, the sky would always be quite black."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.