Contributions to a British Association Discussion on the Evolution of the Universe

Abstract

IT has sometimes been asked whether the universe is evolving at all. Certainly its future evolution is a matter of speculation, and its past evolution a matter of inference. But that it is evolving at this present time is not a matter of speculation at all—it is a matter of observation. We actually see stars undergoing drastic changes—changes of organisation so fundamental that they can almost be described as mutations. I refer to those outbursts which we call ‘novæ’.