THE STARS
HEAVENLY, NOT FILM
.Sir Jamos Jcuns has deservedly bocome a "best seller," and since tbe death o.f Sir Robert Ball there lias been no writer on astronomy with such a. gift of lucid exposition and easily understood imagery. In "The Stars in Their Courses" lie has reproduced a scries of broadcast talks; ; expanded to doublo their original length and illustrated with a number of photographs and star maps of both northern and southern hemispheres. The informal conversational stylo of writing makes the book very readable. ■■• ' ■■'.
As might be expected, the closing chapters, on the size and age of the universe, are'the most interesting part of the book. ,We find" in it "oho .particularly significant paragraph; SirJames Jeans writes: ". . . .modern science . .". . tells us that .the system of star cities (ouivown galaxy and the distant nebulae) constitutes, -.the. complete universe; If -there is ■•■ anything beyond, it can only bo other complete universes; having no interaction with bur own. . ..." So that it would seem that at inconceivable* distances beyond Einstein's /'finite but..unbound-. cd iinivcrso there may still bo others of which in the nature of things _ wo can never have any knowledge,- since, howovor much we aro ablo to multiply the space-penetrating power of. our telescopes, wo shall never bo able to perceive radiations from theso other self-contained, universes, oach of which must alßO.be "finite but unbounded." The admission of this possibility does remove- the difficulty winch some of us have felt about an infinite ] void beyond the confines of Einstein's finite universe, but it relegates all speculation 'on the subject to the l'Ogion of the unprofitable. Certainly there is enough material in our own. knowablo universe with its star population of anything up to five'hundred thousand • million and circumference of anything up to a similar number of light years, to keep. our observatories busy for as far ahead as it is possible to look.
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Bibliographic details
Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 114, 16 May 1931, Page 19
Word Count
314THE STARS Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 114, 16 May 1931, Page 19
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