Project Gutenberg #20417
The Outline of Science, Volume 1
J. Arthur Thomson
1922Thomson's broad popular-science survey of astronomy, biology, and Earth science, prepared section by section from Project Gutenberg HTML.
Project Gutenberg #20417 Public domain in the United States Cover source Local typographic cover created for MojiMori from public-domain source metadata
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The story of the triumphs of modern science naturally opens with Astronomy. The picture of the Universe which the astronomer offers to us is imperfect; the lines he traces are often faint and uncertain. There are many problems which have been solved, there are just as many about which there is doubt, and notwithstanding our great increase in knowledge, there remain just as many which are entirely unsolved.
The problem of the structure and duration of the universe [said the great astronomer Simon Newcomb] is the most far-reaching with which the mind has to deal. Its solution may be regarded as the ultimate object of stellar astronomy, the possibility of reaching which has occupied the minds of thinkers since the beginning of civilisation. Before our time the problem could be considered only from the imaginative or the speculative point of view. Although we can to-day attack it to a limited extent by scientific methods, it must be admitted that we have scarcely taken more than the first step toward the actual solution.... What is the duration of the universe in time? Is it fitted to last for ever in its present form, or does it contain within itself the seeds of dissolution? Must it, in the course of time, in we know not how many millions of ages, be transformed into something very different from what it now is? This question is intimately associated with the question whether the stars form[Pg 10] a system. If they do, we may suppose that system to be permanent in its general features; if not, we must look further for our conclusions.