SUN HEAT.

Hokitika Guardian, 29 June 1925, Page 4

SUN HEAT.

HOW IT IS DERIVED

WILL I AST 111 I.I.iOXS OK VICARS t;h inp ~lf heal at the rale that if is doing at present, the sun toll las l about CbOnU-ri.(Kill.OKI, years, accord inp in I be 1 all-illations of I’rogossor \Y. 1). MacMillan, of the I'niversity ol C hiea.po, reported to the American A! atliemal iea I Society isit.Vs “ Sci •nee Service”). According to the latest theories, said Professor .MacMillan, ol winch he is one ol tin* originators, tin heat of a star such as the sun is supplied bv the actual transmutation of matter into energy. "I lie sun s present mass, he says will in this uay Mippß the solar system with heat and light fur the period stated. However, losl there be any tear Ini the fate of our descendants after that time, f'rnlessor .MacMillan stated that the -it 11 may well be able In gather up more matter as if passes among the stars to replace that lost by radiation. So-called "empty’’ space is really full of much matter, besides that which we see shilling in the sky, and Prolessor .MacMillan estimates that. il such matter is distributed in as extremely rarefied a state as a cubic foot of normal atmospheric air expanded to fill a cube of .‘JO miles on a side, it would bo sufficiently dense to maintain the solar mass. This density is not improbable, lie thinks. As for the question of whether or not there may he life elsewhere in the universe, he thinks that it is quite likolv.

“Life is not a phenomenon peculiar to the earth.” he said. “ It. exists upon the earth because the conditions upon the earth have been favourable for a sufficiently long period of time. In the past million years or fo it has developed a certain small degree of intelligence, and the race of man is beginning to pry into the secrets of nature with a real curiosity. Elsewhere, in an infinite universe, there are other suitable abodes, infinitely many, with races of living beings upon them. Some of those races are young, some of them are vastly older, than ours, more highly developed, much wiser. Sucli races existed before the earth was formed, or even before the sun stalled mi its careei' as a star: after the earth, and even after the sun has pass,. ( | ,nit of existence, other races of living livings elsewhere will ho repeating with infinite variations the experiences which we are having upon the earth at the present time. "Atoms, living livings, stars, and galaxies, are permanent forms in the universe. It is the individuals only that come and go.”