THE CLASH OF SUNS.

Northern Advocate, 10 April 1911, Page 3

THE CLASH OF SUNS.

AN ETERNAL COSMOS

PROFESSOR BICKERTON'S NEW

BOOK,

LONDON, February 24.

Professor A. W. Bickerton's "Birth of Worlds and Systems" was publish-

Ed yesterday by Messrs Harper and Brothers In tehir "Library of Living rrHought," a series of new books writ- . • ten and devoted to the '") study of vital problems of the day. In being invited to contribute to this ser • Jes the New Zealand professor is enrolled in a company of very distinguished men, for his fellow-contribu-tors include Tolstoy, Swinburne, Prolessor Arrhenius, Sir William Crookes, 'Sir Oliver Lodge and Professor Flinders Petrie. The book has a" preface by Profes- " sor Bickerton's old pupil, now a distinguished ,man of science, Professor . / E. Rutherford, F.R.S., An advance "proof" of Professor Rutherford's preface was included in a previous London letter. Briefly, he considers that Professor Bickerton's theory of stellar collisions offers a reasonable and satisfactory explanation not only of the origin, but also of the variations in brilliancy, and in the type of spectra given by new stars. "In any case," he adds, "the theory should serve as a valuable working hypothesis to those A. who are eng*aged in interpreting the v spectroscope, evidence afforded by new stars." Professor Bickerton's Partial Impact theory is so well-known in New Zealand by this time that a sketch of It. Is hardly called for here. The kernel of it is, of course, that a temporary star, such as we see blazing in the heavens from time to time, is a third body formed by a grazing collision between two other stars. It is the spark, so to speak, struck off by the collision between flint and steel. In many eases' the third body is at such high tem--7 perature that the light elements are sble to escape from it, and a spherical ".shell of intensely heated gaseous matter travels outward at great speed into space. It was in 1878 that Professor Bickerton hit upon this idea. "The formation of this explosively hot third body," lie sayib, "v/as the fundamental thought that for over thirty year* has been ' f.'c.vtrtg ahd illuminating the iiekls i<l celestial dynamics in every direction. ... I had little thought at lirst ■ to what distance so simple an idea would lead one, and of the mass of fumplexities that lay immediately in the way." This simple theory has in fact, besides accounting for a number of otherwise inexplicable celestial phenomena, opened up visions of an Eternal Cosmos. From examining the ; partial impact of two suns, the author of the theory has deducted vast generalisations which explain the orig'r. and character not only of our solar system, but of the universe as a whole. AN ETERNAL UNIVERSE. Our galactic system is apparently formed of two vast and stately streams of stars—two cosmic systems vhicli, drifting towards each other., have interpenetrated. . By the crowding of vivid and dead suns, by their double drift, and by mutual attraction solar impacts must be produced. In this galaxy \* T e •do in fact find the wreckage of star collisions, such as temporary, variable, and double stars, planetary nebulae and other gaseous nebulae, star clusters and nebulous stars. In.the collision of stars, if Professor Bickortou's theory be correct, are laid the foundations of new stellar systems. Out of death cometh like. The Cosmos is able to renew itself in vast cycles of birth and death, cycles which succeed one i.nother to all eternity. It obeys whar. one may term a Law of Eternal Recurrence. Let me in this connection quote" the New Zealand scientist's impressive conclusion: "When the great thinker, Lord K^l- '.. tin, propounded the apparently inexorable law of dissipation (of energy) that he had discovered; when all the fgre&t. philosophers and scientists that ;.oppo3ed this dismal doctrine of eternal , death, that grew as logical deduction from that theory, failed to find a flaw In the reasoning, and eternal death seemed the undoubted fate of all things; then pessimism was perhaps allowable, if not inevitable. "But if the entire mechanism of a. cyclic scheme of creation be within cur thinking power, surely we should use it as a basis of a rational optimistic philosophy of human life, out of TThich grows the faith that— Pain is God's message telling man he errs;

Dir? misery reveals deep social wrong; Joy is God's index unto righteousness." Professor JJickerton has a genius for exposition, and his little volume of i 55 pages on the Birth of Words is a masterly summary of the largest generalisation ever made in explanation of 'he mystery of the universe. Will the theory be accepted by the scientific world as a working hypothesis? Some distinguished scientists have given it their cautious approval, but the difficulty is in these days of specialisation to find a scientist sufficiently equipped in all the branches of science concerned in the theory. Astronomers are not engineers; engineers are not astronomers. What we want, says Professor Bickerton,- is a Cosmophysic Club, where the student of projectiles will meet the civil and mechanical engineers; the expert spectroscopist meet the astrophysicist; rhe experimental investigator meet the astronomical observer. Then each expert would aid in weaving or in testing a correlation into which each of these branches of science enters.

"Then perchance," says the Professor, "celestial birth, maturity, death and rejuvenescence may be as wel) understood as is the mode of organic ovolution. We want a home of union, ■where the wondrous discoveries of each specialist shall have their piac3S allotted in the great conception of ilie complex structure of the whole Creation." .