Abstract
WHATEVER differences of opinion may exist with regard to Sir James Jeans's deductions concerning the origin and destiny of the physical universe, they have at least the cardinal virtue of making us think. His latest presentation of his views on these matters, which we publish as our supplement this week, is certainly no exception to the rule. The story he tells, with his customary skill in arranging his material and illustrating difficult points by telling analogies, leaves the reader sitting long in his chair, musing on old problems in the light of the new knowledge. In some respects the outlook has changed almost beyond recognition from that of our fathers and grandfathers; in other, and perhaps deeper, respects it remains very much as it has always been. The idea of a degradation of the physical universe by a series of sudden mutations appears to have taken the place of the old conception of a continuous process, and the change, from the point of view of the ordinary thinker, is by no means a superficial one. Spontaneous changes, such as those of radio-activity,jhave an air of mystery about them. Why should one atom of uranium suddenly undergo a metamorphosis while its apparently exactly similar neighbour remains unchanged for thousands of years? Fifty years ago such a conception would have been regarded as unscientific—a return to magic rather than a step forward. The quantum theory as a whole, in fact, when considered in detail, contains an element of arbitrariness which would not have been permitted in the older physics. It is only when we come to statistical results that law and order once more resume their reign. There still seems to be no escape from the second law of thermodynamics. If our view of the process of degradation of the universe has changed, the degradation itself still seems to be a fact, and in the place of an ultimate universe of dead, cold matter, we have an ultimate universe of dead, cold radiation. The difference scarcely seems a matter of vital concern.
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[News and Views]. Nature 122, 703–706 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/122703a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/122703a0