Mathematics – Logic
Scientific paper
Mar 1919
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1919natur.103...43s&link_type=abstract
Nature, Volume 103, Issue 2577, pp. 43 (1919).
Mathematics
Logic
Scientific paper
I WAS much interested to see in the letter by Dr. Harlow Shapley bearing the above title (NATURE, March 13, p. 25) that new astronomical evidence makes it necessary again to challenge the almost universal assumption that radiation is uniformly propagated in all directions through free space. I have long felt that this unjustifiable assumption was at the bottom of the difficulty of accounting for the maintenance of solar and cosmical energy even over the periods of time demanded by geological history, and I have often thought that, even though no actual crucial test is possible, experimental evidence on such an important question ought to be attempted. In a review of Dr. N. R. Campbell's ``Modern Electrical Theory'' (NATURE, vol. xcii., p. 339, 1913) I pointed out that experiment and observation justify only the conclusion that radiation is propagated between portions of space occupied by matter, and that elsewhere it may not be propagated at all. The frank confession of complete ignorance on this, the simplest first question as to the nature of radiation in its cosmical aspect, would put an entirely different complexion on the doubtful generalisations from laboratory science to cosmology. As Dr. Shapley calculates with regard to solar radiation, the ordinary assumption demands a loss of energy one hundred million times greater than experimental evidence justifies.
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