Evening star., 1932-09-08
UNIVERSE LIKENED
TO TOY BALLOON
Rriton Tells Astronomical
Session indications
! of Expansion.
By the Associated Press.

By the Associated Press.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass, September g.
A picture of the expanding universe
would be something like that Of rub
Der balloon steadily inflated, Sir Ar
cal authority of the University of CAM
bridge, England told members of the
international, Astronomical Union here
last night.
Imagine a rubber balloon to repre-
sent spherical space" he said.
I'm our three dimensions-length
breadth and thickness-all ought to be
in the rubber skin of the balloon; so
We have to sacrifice one of them in the
model, but that does not matter very
seriously
Imagine the galaxies to be imbedded
in the rubber. Now let the balloon be
steadily inflated; that's the expanding
universe.
THE galaxies are supposed to be
dotted all over the balloons surface.
Our observationaI knowledge, however,
is limited to a portion which CORE
spends roughly to the size of India on
terrestrial globe. Each galaxy has ga
laxies all round it. None is central and
none at the outside That is why we
have to use spherical space.
you could not construct a system
like that in space as we have COM
monty imagined it. OF course. rs the
balloon dilates the rubber stretches and
one another. That is the motion of
recession that We observe"
All Change Is Relative.
Sir Arthur impressed upon the sew
eral hundred distinguished astronomers
gathered from all parts of the world to
hear the principal address Of a week of
scientific discussion that, "all change is
relative"
.'The universe is expanding relatively
to our common standards. Our common
standards are shrinking relatively to
the size of the universe
''The theory Of the expanding uni
verse might also be called the theory
Of the shrinking atom We
walk the stage Of life. performers of a
drama for the benefit of the cosmic
spectator. As the scenes proceed, he
notices that the actors are growing
smaller and the action is quicker.
When the last act opens the curtain
rises on midget actors rushing through
their parts at frantic speed"
Sir Arthur. an international author
ity on stellar constitution and the Struc-
ture of the universe, opened his ad-
dress with a description of the OBJ
servational data which have been col
lected since the first theoretical hint
of an expanding universe was made
in 1917 by Willem De Sitter, director
Of the observatory at the Leiden, Hol-
land. University.
Just as predicted" he said. "the re-
mote spiral nebulae appear to be run
ming away from us and the velocity
OF recession increases in proportion to
the distance. They are not avoiding
us-every one Is having the same ex-
perience. The disturbing thing is the
rate at which expansion is going on.
The system doubles its diameter in
/ 800. 900 900 years at the present rate.
I'm 1915 Einstein had by his new
theory and law Of gravitation brought
a large part of the domain of physics
to good order. There was only one place
where it did not seem to work properly
and that was infinity.
'Einstein showed his greatness in the
simple. drastic way with which he dealt
18th the difficulties OF inflnity. He just
abolished infinity.
He inserted another term in his law
Of gravitation which had the effect Of
r1aking space at great distances bend
round and close up; SO that. by going
right on one never gets to inf1nity. You
only get back to your starting point
again.
Since there was no longer any in
hnity there could not be any difficulties
of infinity"
Eddington was introduced by Presi-
dent Karl T. Compton of Massachusetts,
Institute Of Technology. In discussing
the journey of light in spherical uni
verse he raised the question concerning
the correctness Of Dr. Robert A. Milli-
ken's theories of the sources of ccsmic
radiation.
Pointing out that the greater part of
cosmic radiation generated since the be-
ginning of time still was wandering
about unabsorbed, he said that by far
the greater part of that observed dated
fron the time before expansion of the
universe seriously had started.
Cosmic Ray Activities.
"Cosmic rays travel several times
around the universe before being alb
sorbed, and it takes at least six thou
sand million years to make a single
journey" he said. The greater part
OF that which enters our instruments
now dates from before expansion really
started. II these rays have an astron-
omlcal source that source ought to be
symmetrical with respect to the earth
because the rays themselves come SYM
metricaliy.
Yet We know of no sources which
/ .\M