The weekly Floridian. [volume] (Tallahassee, Fla.) 1867-19??, 1892-09-24
THE EARTH MUST DIE,
An Illustration Showing That the Solar
System Will Inevitably Expire.

System Will Inevitably Expire.
| Consider fywheel or clOckwork as
driven by weight and the heat gener-
ated by friction against the motion of
wheels and pendulum and Ivy impacts
of teeth against the pallets Of an escape
ment Our knowledge Of properties of
matter and of modes of propagation Of
| heat by radiation OF conluctlon. and of
| the efficiency Of heat as motor, discov-
cred by several thousand years of OBJ
servation and several hundred years Of
| experiment and dynGmical theory. suf-
fees to show that when the weight is
run down and the potential energy (or
capacity to do work. which it had III the
beginning has been all spent in the heat
this heat is not available for raising the
weight and giving the clockwork a re-
newed lease of motivity.
The solar system, according to the
best modern scientific belief, is dy-
namically analogous to the clockwork
in all the essentials of our consideration
Not going back in thought to begin
ming of which science knows nothing,
let us compare the solar system as it
was 5000 years ago with the solar sys-
tenn as it is now. Let our analogue be
a clockwork which three hours ago was
known to be going with its weight par
TALLY run down, and which is still 60
ing with its weight not yet wholly run
down
During these 5000 years the sun has
been giving out radiant heat Digit be-
ing included in the designation radiant
heat') in all directions, propagated at
the rate of about nine and half million
million kilometers per year, and there
fore twenty-eight and half thousand
million million kilometers in 5000 years.
We do not know whether the light which
left the sun 3,OOOyears ago is still travel
ing outward with almost undiminished
energy or whether nearly all is already
dlssipated in heat, warming the lumini-
ferrous ether or ponderable bodies which
have obstructed its course. We may, l
think, feel sure that it is partly still
travelling outward as radiant heat, and
partly spent Tor dissipated) in warming
ponderable matter Cor ponderable mat
ter and the luminiferous ether).
The running down of the weight in
the clockwork has its perfect analogue,
as Helmholtz was, believe, in reality
the very first to point out in the shrink
age of the sun from century to century
under the influence of the mutual gray
national attractions between its parts.
The heat producing efficiency of the fire
which there would be if the sun were a
oil 10 Of
ing from its outward surface inward
that is to say, the work done by the po-
tential energy of the chemical affinity
between uncombined oxygen and carbon
and hydrocarbons, attractive forces as
truly forces and subject to dynamic law
as is the force Of gravity itself is abso-
lutely infinitesimal in comparison with
the work done by the gravitational a.
traction on the shrinking mass adduced
by HelmholtZ as the real source Of the
suns heat.
The whole story of energy now in the
sun, whether of actual heat correspond
ing to the suns high temperature or Of
potential energy (as Of the not run down
weight of the clockwork) potential en-
ergy of gravitation depending on the
extent of future shrinkage winch tne
sun is destined to eXperience-is essen
TALLY finite, and there is much less Of it
now than there was 3OO, 900 years ago.
Similar considerations Of action on
vastly smaller scale are CT course appli-
cable to terrestrial plutonic energy, and
thoroughly dispose Of the terrestrial per
petual motion" by which Lyell and oth
followers of Hutton, on as sound Or.
ciples as those Of the humblest lnochan-
ical perpetual motionist, tried to find
that the earth can go on forever as it is,
illuminated by the sun from infnitv of
time past to infinity Of time future, al
ways habitation for race after race Of
plants and animals, built on the ruins of
the habitations of preceding races OF
plants and animals
The doctrine Of the "disSipation ener-
gy" forces upon us the conclusion that
within finite period of time past the
earth must have been. and within fin
lite period of time to come must again
be, unfit for the habtation of man as at
present constituted unless operations
have been and are to be performed
which are impossible under the laws
governing the known operations going
on at present in the material world
Fortnightly Review.