NO END TO THE UNIVERSE.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXVII, Issue 120, 23 May 1903, Page 2 (Supplement)

NO END TO THE UNIVERSE.

Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace's theory, to the effect that the solar system is the centre of the universe, and the earth the only inhabited celestial body, meet? with no credit among French scientists. M. Bertbelot and M. Maurice Loowy, director of the observatory of Paris, both scout the idea.

M. Berthelot says:—"Thistheory is puerile, and no man of science will take it seriously. It reminds me of an ancedote about Charle3 V., who, on being asked where the centre of the earth was, planted his sword in the ground and said :—' The centre ig here; it is where I am.'

" The universe being infinite, composed of a multitude of stars, suns, and planets, its centre is nowhere. Our mind is so formed that we cannot conceive of the universe otherwise than as infinite. The theory in question is the reawakening of an old Biblical theory, according to which God, having created man in His own image and likeness, manufactured a world to suit him. The Greeks had analogous ideas. They said that ' man is the measure of things.' The aphorism is pretty, but it is false if taken from an absolute point of view."

M. Leowy said :—Dr. Wallace's assertion that the latest discoveries in astronomy and accepted theories regarding the proportion of light tend to prove that the stars aro limited in number is doubly false. In certain parts of the heavens we do not see any stars, but it would be madness to conclude that the end of the universe had been reached. It would be as a short sighted man were to claim that there were no stars except those which he could see. "Ia regard to light, it is an admitted theory that luminous wave 3 from a source of light are transmitted without losing anything- of its intensity. Therefore, it is said, if the stars were infinite in number and equally distributed throughout the universe, ifc would be as light by night as by day. These arguments are not embarrasing. First of all, it appears certain that the stars are not regularly distributed, but are grouped in masses in vast agglomerations.

" And as for the light theory, it has only been verified over relatively small distances, * but light, which travels at a rate, of 77,000 leagues a second, takes 100,000 years to come from some stars to the earth. It is quite possible that, over such vast space, it is diminished much in intensity.

" The earth is by no means in a privileged situation, nor ia the sun the centre of the universe. There are so many stars bigger than the sun that not a single astronomer will dream for a moment of defending any such hypotheses wh;cb are in contradiction and are mere fruits of the imagination."