SIZE OF THE UNIVERSE

Evening Post, Issue 88, 12 April 1924, Page 16

SIZE OF THE UNIVERSE

ACCORDING TO THE EINSTEIN . THEORY.

In an unusually interesting article in "Science," for 7th September, Professor Archibald Henderson' discusses the question of the size of the universe, according;.to Einstein's general relativity theory. The volume of this universe,' expressed in 'grams, is seven followed, by forty-oue ciphers, divided by the mean density of matters to the 3-2 pow-. er; and the" mass' of this: universe" is, seven followed by , forty-one, ciphers di-vided-by the square root of.the mean;: density. If ,we assume i.that the aver- j age 'density of the matter in the universe is the same, as .that pf. the Milky Way, we find that, the radius of the universe ! is. at least 150 million light years j or, since-the distance from the earth to" the sun is f 93,000,000 miles, the radius of the .■universe, is one. .'million 'times ten million times the distance' from the earth to the sun; • Choosing, the: Milky Way. as a "yardstick", of 50,000 light years, according to tKe figure of Curtis,- it will take 10,000 Milky Ways, laid end to end, to arrive at the. diameter of the universe. Usingfthe diameter of' theVearth's orbit as a (measuring rod, we shall need ton trillions fpl these1 units to take"the measure of the diameter of the.universe. - ' The weight of the universe, in grams,' would be one followed by forty-four ciphers—which would carry, us into the npnlllions of grams. The weight of the Einstem universe bears the : same rela.tion to the weight of the whole earth as the latter bears to a kilogram. " The weight of the earth to that of the sun is as one to 324,000. ' Hence we should ! have to \take a. trillion suns to get the weight of the universe) ■ . It would take a ray of light; travelling at the rate of 186,0® miles per second, one .billion years to go around the universe. • To go axound the universe ■it would take the fastest airplane three quadrillion years; the fastest' automobile five and one half quadrillion years; and an express train, travelling at the rate of sixty miles an hour, eleven quadrillion years. '.'■..