THE NEW KNOWLEDGE.

Progress, Volume I, Issue 4, 1 February 1906, Page 79

THE NEW KNOWLEDGE.

One ot ihz mosl mteresimg of modern popular science b<jgko *s Professor Liuucau's TU* tfew ■^ Knowledge " which gives a lucid account oi the recent wg r k of Professor Thomson md the staff oi the C*vendish Laboratory, oi B^querel, the Curies, Ramsay. Rutherford, Soddy Lockyer, and others in its bearing on the electrical nature of matter, the facts of radioactivity, the evolution and inter-relations of the so-called chemical elements and the meteontic hypotkt&js Here and theft si )S . decorated somewhat g&udjjy by passages of " fine wnimg," for example What a phantasmagoric dance >l j* lh>s dance dj atoms ' And what a la&k for the master of the cer«mons<s For mirk you, th* muUbiUties oi thing? Th«se same atoms, rruyb*. or others like tli<cu wine together again. vibr*^og, clustering, in tcr locking, combining, and th*re results a woman i flower, a blackbird, or a locust, as the case may be But to-morrow again the dance is ended and the atoms are far away ; some of them are m the fever germs that broke up m the dance, others are " tfcp green hair of the grave," and others are blown about the antipodes on (he winds of the octkii Thr mutabilities of things aud likewise the tears pf things for one thing after another, " Ljivr snow upon the desert's duj.ly face Ligh^ng a. little hour or two^-u ' and the eternal, ever-changmg dan<:« gors on But tries* " purple patches " are easiiye a5 iiy separable from the <**ture of the book : they af* m it but not really o( it. When he sets himself resolutely to his task of Exposition, the author can be a s plain m his neatness as the dignity of the sub}ect demands. He expects nothing from his reader f u t " a highschool education and a love of contemporary natural knowledge " He avoids the merely historical method and builds up his account o< the new science srom the standpoint of simjjbmiy di apprehension The new facts and the villas they op?n up to the trained imagination are consecutive y s«t forth m the Or4?r which best brings out ih«ir mutual relations Ttie reader is lead on ovet rough places where h« will need all his high-bchooi algebra and dynamics and chemistry to make.sure ot his footing, with growing confidence that his gmde knows the way, and that the goal is worth' reaching. From the -three entities — matter, ether arjd energy — he passes to molecules and atoms, to tt e periodic law with its bafflmg suggestions and bn))>ant forecasts ; theuce te> lhe aons that conduct electfjuty and its torpuscu^ax carriers or electrons Ne*t he reaches rad>oattiv»»y »nd my^tty M tad^m v»ih Us rays And its prodigious stores of «ndatomic energy its growth, and its <4<}<;ay into inert and elemental hehum. If one meui may thus " transmute " itself, why may not all J The alchemist may have been right m his Aim tliough his methods were futile. Are the " cl <me nts " elementary and simple, or are they but complex arrangements of one primitive matter ? Questions like the^t are not merely posed and hi\ they are faced and the reader is helped to a»s»cr them in the latter hall of the book. What H the distinction between maiirr and electricity >s s\>prfflwus ? HitheitD ihr coxpusdes of \whsch rriatir^ is built have been conceived as " carriers '* oJ electricity ; wliat if th« earner and the charge be on* > A charge moving waU sufficient speed v/auld hay« the property we assign, as fundamental and characteristic, to the carrying mass, namely, the property of inertia. The principle of economy suggests (hat we dispense with the notion of matter as unnecessary, and thus lightened we are brought with a bound to the electronic theory (not electroionic, as lh<? author repeatedly c.-OJs it) namely, that particjrs of matter are but pa;i>rles of negative electric rty in svMt mou&n Ifon?v£h the ether. Leaving thr earth, where the mragtrnrss °f om rr&ources hinders Our qu«st, wr are nt\t direct^ w (hr sun And stars By spectrum analysis we are able to to ten our conclusions, under oi scale and temp^raCure that have no parallel this cold and narrgw planet. The evidence (hat the ele ments aye dissolved by fervent heat, (Uat from hot star to cold they increase m complexity and in variety, that there is a rhythmic process of inorganic evolution and involution, is cumulativr consistent, ineluctable Professor Duncan skiliu))y turns the new light backward o\er the way he W traversed, and show* that it was straight and wisely tSose* He thjpwg it forward »»J thrreby tUummcs in part thy untrodden path ihtad The sources of th« sun's heat, th< earth's ag* (he phenomena <\i th« aurora, the zodiacal Ugh( and the i nebul* (h« decay and rebirth <si tti« cosmos, all < come within the sweep of his holoplio^ And he 1 leaves us with the conviction that we ar« not toiling 1 on a fool's chase, but have in our hands a clue that < will bring us nearer to the ultimate reality of things. ■ The bopk is one to be digested by tbp thoughtful J man who has heard of the new discovery and wants :

to know. Not for its information mtrely, though that is »& ibt mam both accurate and iuil l?ut for its sugge&i»c>n Jpr >ts call upon the ihirskjnp powers of >u rtadejs Ibe book deserves a cordial wpjrome fic>iTi " tavmen jn sCjrnce."