MODERN ASTRONOMY

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 115, 17 May 1930, Page 21

MODERN ASTRONOMY

"The Universe Around Us." By Sir James Jeans. Cambridge: University Press (through Whitcombe and Tombs). Books on astronomy are usaally either too simple or "popular" to have any real value or else too technical for any except those versed in the science. But Sir James Jeans has struck the happy medium with extraordinary success. Modern astronomical research, both observational and theoretical, together with problems of cosmogony and evolution, are treated in non-technical language, and an extraordinarily fascinating volume is tho result. "The Universe Around Us" is indeed a book for everyone —everyone, that is, who can see a yard beyond his own little cabbage-patch. All the usual features of t an astronomical work are there, and many more besides, but all are treated with marked charm and originality. There is nothing dry as dust about the facts and figures as regards the universe when presented by Sir James Jeans: he makes them of live interest. "The Universe Around Us" is a masterpiece: would that other scientists could do the same for their subjects. Speculation as to the beginnings and endings of the universe are indulged in guardedly, for it is admitted that the function of science is to describe phenomena: rather than to explain them. But it is interesting to learn of the latest" scientific view which holds out little hope for the universe escaping total annihilation, but not for millions of years to come, fortunately. The energy that keeps the. universe going, wo are told, is constantly being transformed, always on a downward path to longer wave-lengths. "The final state of the universe will, then, be attained when every atom which is capable of annihilation has been annihilated, and its energy transformed into heat-energy wandering for ever round space, and when all the weight of any kind whatever which is capable of being transformed into radiation has i been so transformed." And what of the beginnings of the universe? "It is clear that the present matter of the universe cannot have existed for ever. The universe is a definite picture whose dimensions are a certain amount of space and a certain amount of time; the protons and electrons are the streaks of paint which define the; ..picture against its spacetime background. Travelling as far .back as "we can, brings us, not to the creation of the picture, but to its .edge; the creation of thp picture lies as much outside the picture as the artist is outside his canvas. On this view, discussing the creation of the universe in terms of time and space is like trying to discover the artist and the action of painting by going to the edge of the picture. This brings us very near to those philosophical systems which regard the universe as a thought in the niind of its Creator, thereby reducing all discussion of material creation to futility/ ' • ... The plain man, suggests the author,recognises the impossibility of the human • mind comprehending the universe, and decides that his own efforts shall stop on this side of the creation of matter. x Life, that is, life as wo know it, is probably to- be found only/on a very small speck in tlfe universe, only on the earth. Martian canals made by intelligent, beings and such like fancies, Sir James Jeans, does not hold with. "Looked at in terms of space, the message of astronomy is at best one of melancholy grandeur and oppressive vastness. Looked at in terms of time, it becomes one of almost endless possibility and hope.: As denizens of the universe we may be living near its end rather >than its beginning; for it seems likely that'most of the universe had melted into radiation' before we appeared on the scene. But as inhabitants of the earth, we are living at the very beginning of time. We have come into being in the fresh glory of the dawn, and a day of almost unthinkable length stretches before us with unimaginable opportunities for accomplishment. The main, message of astronomy is one of hope to the race and of responsibility to the individual, of responsibility because we are drawing plans and laying foundations for a longer future "tha* wo can well imagine." With that Sir James Jeans takes leave of his. readers. He has written a remarkable book without doubt, and one can' well understand that ■"The Universe Around Us!' is accounted amongst .the '.'best sellers."-— H.W.M.