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Evening Star, Issue 20984, 24 December 1931, Page 9

END OF WORLD FORETOLD

UNIVERSE WILL BURST LIKE A BUBBLE ONE LAST MICROSCOPIC BLUR. Prosperous prophecy that the great globe itself would fade like the baseless fabric of a vision and leave not a rack behind, was re-echoed by Sir Arthur Eddington in delivering his presidential address to the Physical Society at the Imperial Institute. “The universe,” he said, “is swelling like a bubble at a rate which, if not alarming o ordinary citizens, is most disturbing to the theorists. In the time which has elapsed since the oldest terrestrial rocks were- formed, the radius of the universe has doubled itself. “ The simile of a bubble may suggest danger, for when bubbles over-espand • they hurst. But we can reassure ourselves. because our bubble of the universe will not burst for a very long time to come ” “ PLEASANTLY INCOMPREHENSIBLE.” Formerly, Sir Arthur Eddington said light could go round the universe in finite time, and continued going round till it was absorbed. But when the universe haa expanded to the point of a bubble bursting* the bell would ring for the last lap and the light waves, then running would make just one morecircuit. But those which started later, would never get round. “ To the farthest limits surveyed bythe telescope space is dotted will numerous islands, so far apart that it takes light about a million years to cross from one island to the next. “ The most striking thing is that these islands, with remarkable unanimity, are going away from us. More than eighty have been observed moving outwards, and not one is coming in to ■ take tbeir place “When the last act opens the curtain will rise on midget actors rushing through their parts at frantic speedy, smaller and smaller, faster and faster,* One last microscopic blur of intenso' agitation and then nothing.” . . Sir Artlni. remarked at the beginning,' of his address that lie hoped to niakOi his theory “pleasantly incomprcheiiV .siblc,”-