Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1913-03-21
SAYS UNIVERSE
IS ELECTRIFIED
Professor BirkeIand Holds Suns
Are Charged.
THEY EMIT POSITIVE ATOMS

Scientist Asserts These Atoms Coalesce
to Form Planets That Revolve About
the suns-Theory Similar to Scien-
lists Who Transmitted Matter-MorS
Now Worlds Than Beings Born.
An amazing picture Of the future
development of the universe is drawn
by Professor Krlstian Birkeland, a
Norwegian physicist, in a lecture de-
liVered before the Academy of Science
at Christiania.
The earth, said Professor Birkeland,
had existed as a globe for over mil
Hard Of years. Man had lived and de-
veloped for only fraction Of that
time. During the last two centuries
he had developed in culture and sci
ence far more than in the hundreds OF
thousands of years that he had pre-
viously existed on the earth.
"How long has this evolution been
going on" asked the lecturer. Geolo'
gy taught that life upon the earth was
only brief episode. Lucien Poincare
once said that human thought was
like a fash Of lightning in the dark
night, but 1t would seem to be con-
ceivable that new worlds had arrived
in space more frequently than human
beings were born on earth. Each
world probably had its fash Of light
ming with its human struggle Oh
thought and discovery, again to dlsap-
pear without leaving trace Worlds
died more frequently than human be-
ings on earth, in numbers beyond COM
putation.
Agrees With Other Scientists
The researches by which Professor
Birkeland arrived at these conclusions
show an interesting similarity with
those Of Sir William Ramsay and pro-
fessor Collie, who recently said they
transmitted metals. His experiments,
he said. showed that as a result Of an
electric discharge in the vacuum tube
platinum and uranium appeared. At
any rate, the original rays were sim
liar to the alpha rays, or, In other
words, behaved in manner compara-
BILE with radium. Such action, he said,
would appear to suggest transmuta'
ton of the elements concerned.
The bearing of these facts on the
theory that Professor Birkeland puts
forward as to the origin Of the uni
verse is that 1t gives experimental con-
6rmation to his hypothesis that bodies
strongly charged with negative cleo
tricity can give out positively electri-
fed particles He regards the suns
aud stars as such bodies emitting these
particles which coalesce to form plan
cts circulating around the parent body.
From this premise he concludes with
Arrhenlus that the whole Of space
consists Of ether charged throughout
with electricity,
All Suns Electrified.
The basis Of his system, Professor
Birkeland explained, was contained in
the belief that all the suns Of the uni.
verse were strongly and negatively
electrified, their electrical condition be-
ing maintained by radiation. The in.
tensity Of the electrihcation varied
with the different stars, but in the case
of the sun being calculated from the
character Of the electric rays passing
from the sun to the earth and produc.
ing the aurora borealis.
The lecturer asserted that he had
shown experimentally that a body in
the condition of the sun might become
magneti2ed and give rise to electric
phenomena corresponding to those
seen in the sun-as, for instance, the
sun spots, arranged in belts on both
sides Of the equator and surrounded
by vortex rings, the movements of
these spots In different degrees of lati.
tude and the appearance Of corona.