Abstract
IN a lecture given before the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Astronomical Society on November 5, Prof. R. A. Sampson discussed “The Spectroscope in the Observatory”. Remarking that the spectrum, along with Wilson's cloud chamber and photographs of diffraction patterns due to electrons, furnishes visible records of things that are too small to see, Prof. Sampson pointed out that Dirac holds it is quite impossible to make a rational theory of these things without reconstructing our ideas of the nature of matter altogether. This has led to the two great theories of modern times, namely, relativity and the quantum theory. They are not yet fully reconciled. In his opinion, there are considerable philosophical difficulties in holding either. Relativity, on its merits, may seem a probable theory, but it cannot do its feats without making time an equal co-ordinate with the familiar three of space. Now we cannot think time away, without sacrificing the possibility of expressing ourselves intelligibly to others, and living in a world where history and cause and effect have no meaning. Nor does it upset our own affairs alone; we see the grass grow in summer and die away in winter. That must be an illusion. It seems to Prof. Sampson a simpler hypothesis to suppose that the intellect is limited. The quantum theory, which is obviously on the right lines, makes in small matters an enormous logical difference, and gives a new meaning to the question “Will the sun rise tomorrow?” for example, when we are dead, or last century, before we were born. We must confess that we have no means of verifying whether it does or not. It seems that both these theories spell the exhaustion of the constructs of the intellect, of which a necessary part is the four elements of space-time, which must be exhausted sooner or later. Leaving these philosophical questions, Prof. Sampson gave a description of the ordinary theory of stellar sequences, etc., including the Russell diagram of the relation of luminosity to spectral class, and white dwarfs.
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Relativity and the Quantum Theory. Nature 138, 1006 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/1381006a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1381006a0