HEAVIER THAN LEAD

Hokitika Guardian, 1 November 1924, Page 1

HEAVIER THAN LEAD

- (By Dr Edwin E. Slosson.) Professor A. S. Eddington, of Cambridge, can spring more sensations in 1 a half-hour talk than any other soberI minded scientist I ever heard. Ho 1 broke the record at the Toronto mcot--1 ing of the British Association for tho Advancement of Science when ho ex- ' pounded his new theory of the constitution and evolution of tho stars. An ' old-fashioned physicist if any such ' were in tho lecture-room, must have • been shocked to hear talk so calmly of gases more than fifty times heavier than platinum, of temperatures over twenty million degrees centigrade, of light waves that are lengthened by gravitation, of chemical elements losing their identity, of stars pulled out by the internal pressure of X-rays, of dwarf stars that are giants at heart, of gases made up of mere electrons and nuclei, of matter converted into energy and of stars that are dissolving into ! light. If these were mere speculations, ; such as some astronomers indulge in, Camille F'lammarion for instance, nobody need mind, hut Professor Eddington insists and persists in proving his points. He began by working out the mathematical theory of star lormation ■ on the assumption that its substance f behaves like a perfect gas. Then on plotting the observational data of ■ stars of all sorts these were found to fit closely to his theoretical curve, oven ' our own sun, which lias a density one and n third times greater than water. F’rom this he concludes that stars in . general obey the laws ol perfect gases, • regardless of their density, and that i their luminosity depends mainly upon tlieir | mass, the density making coin- ' parnlively little difference. Some stars seem to have a density heavier than platinum. F’or instance, the faint companion of Sirius has a . mass eight-tenths as much as the sun, vet its size as judged by its light, must ■ he so small that its density should he I fifty thousand times that of water. Whether its mass is really so great may he determined by observing the Einstein shift in its spectrum, and this is now being treated at the Mount Wilson Observatory. The new theory conflicts with the theory advanced by Professor IE N. Bussel, of Princeton, and now commonly hold, that stars start out in life as red giants of extreme tenuity, that heat develops as they contract, and that they get hotter as they lose heat, until they become while hot, and then gradually cool down to red heat again. Professor Bussell, in spite ol the fact that a hard blow had been dealt at the theory which had given him an international reputation, was the first to congratulate Professor Eddington on his achievement. “I lake oil' my hat to him,” lie said, “for this 1 is the second time he has deduced from I mathematical principles what ought to have been obvious hut was not per- . reived before.” A possible agreement between the rival theories may he brought about by invoking F’.iiisfoiii's idea that matter may lie converted into energy and radiated off into space. Professor Eddington says: “It is possible that a star may gradually diminish in mass during its evolution. This would happen if it obtains its energy of radiation by annihilating electrons and protons, thus huring itself away.” According to Prolessor Eddington s llicMi-v, stars 1-oMtimic l*< gel bolter as they shrink until the central temperature is over ten million degrees centigrade. At litis heat the atom ot the heavier elements would be stripped of its outer electrons, and the atom oT the lighter elements, like carbon and oxygen, would he reduced to the bare nucleus. The atoms in the stais would then have only about one hundred thousandth’ of the hulk of ordinary atoms, and such a gas could he compressed a Hundred thousand times further than tho gases wo deal with on earth before the atoms begin to get ! crowded. In such a state all the stcl- ; lar gases must have about- the same | molecular weight 2.1, whatever may ■ bo the elements that compose them. When I was young astronomers used j to try to scare us by telling lis that I the sun and stars were slowly cooling i down, and at length the universe j would be left all dark and cold. That did not worry us enough, so now they i lmve changed their tactics, and prop \ liesv a time when the elements shall j melt with a fervent heal, and the sun I shall he no more. This sounds alarm i ine. for it would lie worse for the j human race to he roasted alive than 1 frozen to death, and the idea that the soliil nmml nuiy ultininU'ly I>o <lis- ” si paled into radiant energy, and go ? rambling around a four-d.mensional continuum for ever, gives one a non 3 kind of shiver.