EVOLUTION OF THE WORLD

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 5026, 13 September 1926, Page 4

EVOLUTION OF THE WORLD

SIR OLIVER LODGE’S BELIEF.

LECTURE AT MEDICAL SCHOOL.

Sir Oliver Lodge, delivering the Huxley Lecture at the Charing Cross Hospital Medical School,, London, reconstructed the evolution of the physical universe as a process occurring in time, though this might not be, a justifiable assumption.

Might one not suppose, he asked, that there was a recuperative process at work—the formation of matter as well as its destruction ?

It was necessary, he said, in the first nstauce to postulate an undiffeyentated all extensive substance, the ether of space. It was necessary, then, to imagine this knotted up here and there into minute specks of two kinds, known as the positive and negative units df electricity, a process to which there was as yet no clue- Next it was necessary to suppose these electrical units running'together wilder their ■mutual, attractions and forming 92 different groupings on patterns, known as the atoms of matter. These atoms then coalesced to form molecules, some of these containing very few atoms, others containing hundreds. After that .their power of attraction was limited to veiy small ra,nge, though the molecules when they come within close ranfee, of each other Could cohere and group themselves into solid masses of fair size, A new' and unexplained force, extremely minute when moderate mass,? es were dealt with, but becoming very large in the neighbourhood df a great mass, then intervened, gravitation. Consequently at this stage these large masses, long before they became wha.t we. should call large, fell together on their own account and grouped themselves into immense clouds or nebulae. These great masses at first rotated very slowly, but the particles were moving furiously among themselves with unorganised motion associated with the, terms heat and temperature, and much more energy was generated than was lost, so that the whole mass became luminous and visible by what might be called .the high-temperature radiation emitted. As the size diminished the rotation increased, and it took a form similar to that of the earth. Outer bodies, however, would usually interfere, streamers would ! form, and the nebula would break into groups much a,s a water jet broke into drops when too long. In the process- onte> witnessed the birth of a star. A star was. not big enough to behave as a. nebula, but would congeal or condense. If’it was too big it would divide, giving rise to what fivas known as “double stars.”

The sub to-day, though pas.t middle age, was consuming four million tons ■of its own 'matter every second, but it would ta,ke it a hundred and fifty thousand million years to one per cent, of its substance. It had been a surprising discovery of Eddington’s to show that the sun, which was-already

heavier than water, was still gaseous, and recently it had been shown that a body, even a thousand times as. dense as water, could still radiate freely. The Companion of Sirius was such a body, as massive as the sun, but no bigger than a planet. On its surface a lucifer match would weigh half a hundred wieght, and a sovereign would weigh a ton.

Following these ideas to their logical conclusion, it would seem that the universe as a vital and active conc°Tin must have had a beginning, and must have an end. The beginning was the formation of the nebulae 200 million million years ago, and the end would apparently be the disappearance, of matter, and the existence once more of an ether filled with perpetual remnants of radiation, travelling out in all directions towards infinity with the speed of light at a date incomparably more remote than any period of time as yet mentioned or conceived.

Was there, however, an end or a beginning ? continued Sir Oliver. Was it right to follow out the course of evolution as a process in time ? In fa,ct, we saw things in all stages of evolution, not one after the other, but concurrently. Had it not always been so, and might one not suppose that there was a recuperative, process at work, the formation of matter as well as its destruction ? In this connection it was necessary to bear in mind the pressure of light, predicted by Clerk Maxwe.ll, realised by Nicholls and Hull, a,nd verified by Boynton. Light kept the universe clear of myriads of small partictep and drove them - to the confines of space, to what might be called “the. region of cosmic dust.”

What happened when light encountered a particle of dust, say, an atom ? Au immense amount was known about this process. Electrons were revolving in fixed orbits inside (he atom, as conceived by Professor Bohr, and under the stimulus of radiation they jumped from orbit to orbit, as birds jumped from perch to perch, or else flew away altogether. It was the, last process that was known as ionization. Supposing that in “the, region of cosmic dust” only one or two ions a second were found, the. loss d£ matter from even millions or billiohs of suns could be compensated. These ions would meet and combine to form molecules, and the process of chemistry would have begun under the influence of light. Aggregation would take place, a,nd the particles would become too big to be driven away by light. Slowly they would begin to make their way back, bringing with them in potential form the lost and radiated energy, and sb would begin once, more the clash of atoms, the formation of the birth of stars, and ultimately of placets.

It might even be tha,t fresh matterin the form of electrons and protons could be generated by radiation apart from its effect on already existing matter.i

Sir Oliver Lodge concluded by expressing his belief that the physical world followed a definite recurring cycle, but he believed that the evolu-

tion of spiritual things had no necessary regress. They advanced continually through higher and higher stages towards perfection, and this he took it was the real meaning of evolution. This was why the physical universe existed. This was the real aim and purpose of the ultimate and infinite term “God.”—“Morning Post.”