Huntsville gazette., 1882-08-19
Is our Space Bounded +!

Professor Young, of Princeton, in a
lecture before the American Institute of
Christian Philosophy, says:
''It is an interesting question whether
our space is bounded whether we and
our earth and our stars are but portion
of a lmitless region, peopled throughout
with stars, as our immediate neighbor-
hood is, and into which our vision pen
etrates indefinitely; or whether we live
in colony by some means cut off and
separate from other space and systems.
In respect to this [ can only put before
you probabilities and not surely settled
facts. One thing, however, is demon
strable. If space were infinite and
uniformly starred, and If light
passed unobstructed through this
space, then the whole nightly sky
would blaze like the MONDAY
sun; wherever one might look the
heavens would be full of uniform daz-
zling light Since this is not the case, it
is quite sure that one of three hypothesis
must be admitted. Either our stellar
universe is not infinite, but we live in A
cutoff portion of space; or else space is
not anything like uniformly starred, or
else, finally, light fades out in travelling.
/ say one of the three hypothesis must
be admitted, but | do not mean that
either excludes the others. As to my
own opinion, if you care for it, it seems
to me quite certain that the last suppo-
sition of the three must certainly be true
Light is, and must be, obstructed to
some extent in passing from one star to
another, because we have every reason
to believe that between the stars there
are considerable quantities of matter.
bodies which, when encountered by our
system, are recognized as comets and
meteOrS.
ave know but little, to be sure, as to
the amount and distribution of this mat
ter, because the particles never become
visible to us except when they strike our
atmosphere and are seen as shooting
stars. But their number is very much
larger than we are apt to think-the es-
innate of Professor Newton, of Yale,
which believe to be substantially cor
rect, sets the total at about seven and
half millions daily. This would put the
particles at distances from each other of
about 250 miles, on the average. OF
course, no one can say with certainty
that in interstellar space these particles
are as numerous as near the sun. 4
think so, however, for the following rea-
sons: On the one hand, the attraction
of the sun undoubtedly draws them i'll
from all sides, and thus tends to con-
dense them into its immediate neighbOr-
hood, as has been insisted on by Pierce,
np1 ath ht,t tha
other hand-a fact which these gentle
men seem to have overlooked tho
bodies thus drawn in move faster and
faster when nearing the sun, and this
tends to separate them; just as process
sion of carriages moving along an un-
even road are crowded together in all
the difficult and uphill parts where
they move slowly and are spread apart
where they go more rapidly. Thus
there is more or less complete compen-
sation between the two actions, and the
suns attraction has very little if any eff
feet upon the number of particles to the
unit of space, but only accelerates
their speed. These particles are un-
doubtedly very minute. The es-
Inmates of Newcomb and Harkness
60 to show that the majority of them are
probably smaller than a pin head Now,
a haze consisting merely of pins head
once in 250 miles is not very obstructive
to light; but it cuts off something, and
when we take into account the immensely
of space, for one am ready to admit
that the effect becomes sensible in the
brightness of the more distant stars. The
idea is borne out by a well-ascertained
fact, which is this: The number of the
twelfth magnitude stars, while it is
greater than that of the eleventh, is not
SO much greater rs we should expect.
according to the hypothesis Of a reasona-
blc uniform distribution of stars in space
and perfectly free transmission of light,
Knowing that the average twelfth mag
nitIde star gives about two and four
tenths less light than the average elev-
enth magnitude star (the eleventh bear
ing the same ratio to the brightness Of
the tenth, and so on. we can compute
how their numbers ought to compare.
When we do this we find decided de-
tciGncy in the actual as compared with
the computed numbers of the fainter
stars, just such as would follow from a
real haziness Of space.
ssOf course if this is so our visual
knowledge Of the stellar universe is linn
tied, as to one looking out upon land
scape through a fog. OF the great be
yond' we can neither affirm nor deny.
While we know no reasons for believing
its con stitution different from that OF the
cosmos around US, yet, on the other
hand. he would be very rash who should
undertake to assert that there is no diff
ference, and that the same regimen ex-
tends through all the material universe.