Cosmology

Radius of observable universe from Earth: 300,000,000 light-years.*

Probable diameter of total universe: 6,000,000,000 lightyears.

Number of nebulae (star galaxies) in observable universe: 100,000,000.

Probable number of nebulae in total universe: 500,000,000,000,000.

Mass of an average nebula: 800,000,000 times that of the sun.

Such cosmological calculations, offspring of the most respected modern theory and the most searching observation, were slapped down before members of the National Academy of Sciences (enrolment: 300) assembled in Washington last week. The figures were fairly safe ground for the man who presented them, Dr. Edwin Powell Hubble, famed astronomer of Mount Wilson Observatory. Dr. Hubble's universe is a finite Einstein universe, in which there are only 10^3-o (one billion billion trillion) cubic centimetres of space for each gram of matter.

It was when this close-shaven, 45-year-old onetime lawyer and Wartime infantry major led his eminent hearers beyond considerations of mass, size and distribution that he got on disputed ground. Dr. Hubble is chiefly renowned for his measurements of the reddening ("red-shift'') of light from distant nebulae. Effect of these observations was to make the universe, already expanding in theory, seem expanding in fact. The nebulae appeared to be hurtling away from Earth at speeds proportional to their distances, and the redshift of the farthest whose spectra could be analyzed (about 150,000,000 lightyears) indicated the thumping pace of 15,000 miles per second. Thus the galaxies at the frontiers of the observable universe must be receding twice as fast, and at the unseen bounds of the cosmos the nebular velocity must be greater than that of light.

This is a reductio ad absurdum not only for common sense but for the theory of Relativity. Timidly at first but more boldly of late, some astronomers have suggested other possible causes for the redshift, viz. cosmic dust scattered through space or a slowing of light's velocity after millions of years of travel. Once as fervid a believer in the expanding universe as Sir Arthur Eddington, Dr. Hubble was ready last week to admit that it might be an illusion. "The cautious observer," said he wryly, "refrains from committing himself to the present interpretation and employs the colorless term 'apparent velocity.' "

Synthesis. Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington is irked by such caution, says it reminds him of the clergyman who wrote his wife: "I shall be home (God willing) on Friday, and in any case by Saturday." By mathematical means Sir Arthur has arrived at a value for lambda, the cosmical constant of repulsion which scatters the universe, and his lambda value would have the nebulae receding at even greater speeds than the observed velocities. This work incidentally enabled him to compute the total number of protons and electrons in the universe: 10 79 (ten followed by 78 zeros).

Armed with this mighty number Sir Arthur started off on an important synthesis, which last week in Washington he exhibited on a blackboard. Relativity treats matter as mass; quantum theory treats it as waves of probability. Sir Arthur's new quadratic equation treats it as both. Three years ago Cambridge University's astute young Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, writing the most complete exposition of quantum theory in existence, saw "the relativistic formulation of the quantum mechanics" as a great problem which physicists would sooner or later have to tackle. What Sir Arthur showed last week seemed a good start.

There was almost as much science as politics in the news from Washington last week. Convened in that city, besides the National Academy, were the American Physical Society, the American Meteorological Society, the Institute of Radio Engineers, the American Geophysical Union. Some topics discussed at the five meetings:

Lightning's energy amounts to some 1,000,000,000 kilowatt-hours in a year, should some day be harnessed by man. Anatomy of a lightning flash: a "leader" stroke shoots from a negatively charged cloud-bottom to positively charged Earth; the main stroke traces the leader's path in the opposite direction. New photographs with a special speed camera show the leader stroke varying in length from 1.6 to 4.7 miles, in speed from 810 to 19,000 miles per second.--Dr. B. F. J. Schonland, University of Capetown.

Long Life. Seth Lincoln, 91, of Worcester (Mass.), works as a typesetter in a publishing house. He is keen-witted, clear-skinned, sound as a nut. His "ideal" old age is probably due less to good family history, sensible diet and abstinence from alcohol and tobacco than to the fact that Seth Lincoln has never experienced deep sorrow or financial distress, never worries about anything.--Drs. Francis G. Benedict of Carnegie Institution and Howard Frank Root of New England Deaconess Hospital.

"R" is the name proposed for an unknown substance whose removal from living cells seems to explain anesthesia. When certain water plants are soaked in distilled water their cells become unable to transmit stimuli, apparently because "R" is dissolved out. So the effect of everyday medicinal anesthetics may be due to a removal of "R" from human cells.--Drs. J. V. Osterhout and S. E. Hill of the Rockefeller Institute.

Visible Atoms. Academy members had the privilege of beholding, projected on a screen, photographs of three kinds of atoms. The helium atom appeared as a vague blob of electricity. In the neon atom the inner & outer groups of orbital electrons were clearly distinguishable. In the argon atom the inner and middle electron groups showed as one blurred ring, but separate from the outer group. The images were composite photographs of billions of atoms resolved into single pictures by photographing a revolving plate the shape of which was determined by x-ray diffraction. Though indirect, complex and laborious, the method is quite as legitimate as ordinary photography, according to the exhibitor, and the effective magnification is 200,000,000-to-1. This first visual confirmation of electron distribution theory was provided and explained by the University of Chicago's Dr. Arthur Holly Compton.

*One light-year = approximately six trillion miles.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.