END OF UNIVERSE

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 3, 5 January 1932, Page 3

END OF UNIVERSE

LIKE A BUBBLE

UNCEASING EXPANSION

Like the baseless fabric, of this vision, alaces CaPPed t™ers > the Boigeous Theitself m'n temples ' the Srcat Slobe Ami a"'wh + ;' h .".'nberit, shall-dissolve, faded' insubstantial pogeant Leave not a wrack behind. —Prospcro iv "The Tempest.'? The sombre, drama of the end of the world as it may ultimately be viewed by, some spectator in another planet was pictured b* Sir Arthur Eddington, tho astronomer; says the "Daily Telegraph." He, was delivering his • nresidpntial lo the, Physical Society in he noWv 1!V« le£ o£ Science an<l Tee™ nology, South'.Kensington. tmvlt 6 f he°i y .Ot ,f he cx Panding universe might also be called the theory of the shrinking atom," Sir Arthur said. "Let us take the view of a cosmic being. "Watching us for some few thousand million years he sees us. gradually shrinking; atoms, animals planets, even tho galaxies, all share,the same contraction; only the intergalactic spaces remain the same. The earth spirals round the sun in an everincreasing orbit. "We walk the stage of life, performers of a drama for the benefit of the cosmic spectator As the scenes, proceed he notices that the actors are growing smaller "Tin acV on quicker. . When the last act opens the curtain rises on midget actors . rushing through .smaller. Faster and farter. One last , mJ^ os?°P'c blur of intense agitation And then nothing."

BUBBLE UNIVERSE. Sir Arthur declared that the malarial universe .was swelling up like a bubble. Moreover, he said, "it is swelling up at a rate which, if not alarming to the ordinary citizen, is very disturbing to theorists. In . t ho time which has elapsed ance the oldest terrestial rocks wore formed the radius of the universe has become doubled. *

"The simile of a bubble , may suggest thovT ? wh. el\ b"bbles oXPand too much they burst. On this point at least I can speak reassuringly. Our bubble of a univerge is not going to burst-for the best ot reasons. It burst quite a long while B£o. ,

Up to the farthest limits surveyed by our telescopes, space is dotted with numerous islands—the spiral nebulae. They are so far apart that light takes about a. million years to cross from ono island to the next. Each island, turns out to be a galaxy of stars.

The most striking thing is that the galaxies are, with remarkable unanimity, going away from us. More than eighty nave been observed to be moving outwards, and not one has been found coining ra to take their place. "It is an obvious inference that in the °? UI se 2, f tlme the' re Bion will be evacuated. The nebulae will all be out of reach of our telescopes, unless we increase our telescopic power to keep pace. J. flnd that an observer of nebulae will Have to double the aperture of his telescope every 1,300,000,000 years merely to Keep up with their recession. 'Sir James Jeans delights ia telling ua that we have billions of years before us m which to find out all that can be found out about the universe. I suggest, however, that there is v urgency as regards the spiral nebulae; if we leave it too late, there will be none left to examine."