The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-02-23
HYPOTHESIS.
One of the Most interesting Prop
 ositions of Science.
WHAT IT ACTUALLY MEANS.

nat the Sun, Planets and All Matter
 Were Once Vast Mass of Incan-
 descent Gas All Junhied Together In
 an Enormous Chaotic Cloud.
 Everybody has heard the phrase, the nebula hypothesis, but what is it?
 In few words this is the meaning of ''nebula hypothesis" That the sun, were at one time in the inconceivably remote past vast mass of chaotic, in- candescent gas all jumbled together in an enormous nebula, or cloud.
 To begin with. the first conception that science has dared to make, how ever, takes us one step further back Without mentioning the origin of mat ter itself science conceives that in the beginning all matter was uniformly distributed throughout space that there were no stars, no planets, no satellites, but that all space was filled with the matter we now have divided up into very fine particles some dis tance apart. The consistency of such material was pe"force very thin in- deed. much more rarefed than the highest vacuum we can obtain now by air pumps. From this state to the nebulous state the theory has a miss ing link, one that can only be satisfied by supposing divine command, for it assumes, in the words of Professor Todd, that gradually centers of at- traction formed and these centers pull ed in toward themselves other parti- cles. As a result of the inward fall ing of matter toward these centers, the collision of its particles and their fric- tion upon each other the material masses grew hotter and hotter. Nebu- lac seeming to fill the entire heavens were formed-luminous fire mist, like the filny objects still seen in the sky. though vaster and exceedingly numer- ous." This process is supposed to have gone on for countless ages. faster in some regions than in others. Many million nebUlae were formed and set in rotation around their own axes. This happily can be explained by science. Whenever particles are attracted to- ward center and areEkept from fall ing directly to this center whirlpool is formed, rotating in one direction. An example of this, though humble and not exactly analogous, is the rota- tion of water in basin when the stop per is pulled out of the bottom. Gravi- ty attracts the water immediately above the hole, which starts flowing out. thus leaving space to be filled. The rest of the water rushes in from all sides to do this, and the whirlpool is the result
 Now each of these whirling nebulae became exceedingly hot, and each formed what is known as a star or sun, our sun being one. The earth and other planets had not then come into separate existence, of course, as 1t is supposed that they were thrown off later from the sun.
 Our sun in it's nebulous form end TO- tating swiftly on it's axis gradually fattened at its poles on account o1 centrifugal motion. This phenomenon is entirely familiar to those who have seen ball of clay on potter's wheel gradually tiatten. The motion was SC swift and the mass so nebulous that the sun to be took the shape of disk As time went on the outer part be- came cool and somewhat rigid, while the inner part continued it's cooling and contracting. Thus the inner part drew away from the outer, leaving a ring of matter whirling around on the outside. This breaking off of the ring is supposed to be hastened by the in, ability of the outside to keep up the swift motion of the central mass. both On account of the slight cohesion and of the centrifugal force. But this par ticular part of the argument has noth ing to stand on if the first law of mo- tion is true
 In the successive stages of the suns contraction this process was repeated over and over again, until several rings were whirling around the centrA orb. They would necessarily be III the same plane. Now. these rings, not being uniform ill mass or thickness. would each gradually accumulate to- ward the d2nsest portion until they too, would form a ball which would subsequently, fiatten, and if the sub stance continued nebulous and the bal was large enough they would also slough rings.
 Of course, the rings the sun discard ed have become the planets, which, a: required by the theory. are all yer! nearly in the same plane. The ring that the planets formed have become moons or satellites. So we are driver 70 conclude that our sun at one tilne filed all the space from his presen; position to the farthest planet in tn solar system.
 From this theory there is anothel thing that we have to believe, and thai is that every star in the heavens has gone through this same process anc