The Pioche weekly record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1877-1900, 1892-10-27
THE EARTH MUST DIE.
An Illustration Showing That the Sol
System Will Inevitably Expire.


System viii 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 by 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 or conduction, and of
the efficiency of heat as motor, discov-
cred by several thousand years of oh.
servation and several hundred years Of
experiment and dynamical theory, suf-
fees to show that when the weight is
run down and the potential energy Tor
capacity to do work. which it had in the
beginning has been all spent in the heat,
this heat IL not available for raising the
weight and giving the clockwork 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 a 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
clockwork which three hours ago was
known to be going with its weight par
TALLY run down, and which is still go
ing with its weight not yet wholly run
down.
During these 5000 years the sun has
been giving out radiant heat Qight be-
ing included in the designation radiant
heat'D 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 5000 years ago Is still travel
ing outward with almost undiminished
energy or whether nearly all Is already
dissipated in heat, warming the lumini-
ferrous ether or ponderable bodies which
have obstructed its course. We may, ]
think, feel sure that it is partly still
| travelling outward as radiant heat, and
partly spent (or dissipated) in warming
ponderable matter Tor ponderable mat
ter and the luminiferous ether).
The running down of the weight in
the clockwork has its perfect analogue,
as Helmholtz was, I 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 grav-
itational attractions between its parts.
The heat producing efficiency Of the fire
which there would be If the sun were a
globe Of gunpowder or guncotton burn
ing from It's outward surface inward
that is to say, the work done by the po
tential energy Of the chemical affinit,
between uncombined oxygen and carbon
and hydrocarbons, attractive forces q,
truly forces and subject TO dynamic Law
as is the force Of gravity itself, is aDso
lutely infinitesimal in comparison will
the work done by the gravitational at
traction on the shrinking mass adducet
by Helmholtz as the real source of tn,
suns heat.
The whole story of energy now in tb'
sun. whether of actual heat correspond
ing to the SUMS high temperature or o
potential energy las Of the not run dow
weight o. the clockwork) potential en-
ergy of gravitation depending on tn,
extent Of future shrinkage which thu
sun is destined to experience-is essen
TALLY finite, and there is much less Of 4
now than there was 100000 years ago
Similar considerations Of action on 9
vastly smaller scale are Of course appli
cable to terrestrial plutonic energy, anc
thoroughly dispose OF the terrestrial per
petual motion" by which Lyell and othe,
followers Of Hutton, on as sound prin
ciples as those of the humblest tnechan
ical perpetual motionist, tried to find
that the earth can go ON forever as it is
illuminated by the sun from infnity oi
time past to infinity of time future, al
ways habitation for race after race oi
plants and animals, built on the ruins oi
the habitations of preceding races oi
plants and animals.
The doctrine Of the dissipation ener
gy" forces upon us the conclusion that
within a finite period Of time past the
earth must have been, and within fin
ite period of time to come must agair
be, unfit for the habitation Of man as al
present constituted unless operations
have been and are to be performed
which are impossible under the lawl
governing the known operations going
on at present in the material world
Eortnightly Review.