Evening star., 1942-05-05
Of Stors, Men
And Atoms
Notebook of Science Progress
In Laboratory, Field
And Study
BIZ Thomas r. Henru.

By Thomas r. Henry.
As it was in the beginning-an inchoate
mass of electrons, protons and neutrons
huddled in mass about 200, 900 900 ,000,-
900 miles in diameter. weighing approx
imately 10000 pounds square inch, at
temperature of 8,0oo,0OO,0O0 degrees
centigrade.
Out of this has come everything in
few billion years-the Milky Way galaxy
with its $4,000 100000 stars scattered over
an area of space about whose diameter
is thousands of times that of the original
mass, and few million other aggrega-
tions of stars of comparable size separ-
ated by voids so vast that light moving
at 10000 miles second requires mil
lions of years to cross them.
Such was the picture presented be-
fore a group of world famous astrono-
mers who met here privately last week
to coordinate the latest findings on the
evolution of the universe by DR.. S.
Chandrasakar, celebrated Hindoo math-
ematician now on the staff of the
of Chicago. He has completed the most
rigorous mathematical study of the prob
lem of the birth of the universe yet
made, based on the present abundance of
the 90 elements in the universe. This is
revealed by chemical studies of the
composition of the earth and from
spectrographic studies of the stars.
These elements differ from each other
in the numbers of elementary electrical
particles-electrons, protons, and neu-
trons-which make up their atoms. The
atom of hydrogen, the lightest, consists
of one proton and one neutron. That
of uranium, the heaviest, consists of 90
electrons and 90 protons and associated
electrons in its nucleus.
He has been able to calculate. DR..
Chandrasakar told his colleagues who
generally agreed with him, the tenn
peratures and pressures at which ele-
mentary particles would be frozen"
into these particular conformations-
starting with oxygen and going through
the table of the elements to the rare
gas argon, which is twice as heavy as
oxygen. Approximately 40 elements and
forms of elements are included. These
constitute the bulk of the universe as it
is known today.
He could not go back actually to the
beginning, he said, because this in
wolves temperatures and pressures under
which the behavior of matter Is COM
pletely unknown. The 40 elements
would have been Frozen" he says, at
various temperatures and pressures be-
tween 5000, 600 900 C. and 1000, 900 900 C..
In no other way, the astronomers
agreed, can the formation Of the ele-
ments be explained satisfactorily, since
it is certain that in the beginning there
was only a heavy gas formed of the
elementary particles.
Dr. Chandrasakars work lends sub
stance to the hypothesis proposed about
Is years ago by the Abbe Georges Le-
maitre of the University of Louvain to
the effect that in the beginning there
was only single atom which exploded.
The planets and the stars, he MAIN
tanned, were flying fragments from this
explosion.
FIR Lemaitre never defined the size Of
his atom" From the Hindoo astron-
omer's calculations it was an enormously
big one, although still almost tnflniteSt-
imably small compared to the present
size of the universe.
The discussion of the beginnings Of
the universe led to mathematical CAL
culations beyond the scope of some Of
the worlds foremost astronomers who
attended the meeting.
At one time Prof T. H. Thomas Of
Ohio State University wrote down a
mathematical equation which covered
the entire blackboard-and then apol-
ogized for not carrying out some of his
calculations which would have required
another blackboard of the same size.
Almost angrily DR.. Wolfgang PAUL. Of
the Institute of Higher Studies at Prince
ton University, one of Albert Einstein's s
principle colleagues, disputed some of
the conclusions. 1t happened to be
DR.. Paulis 50th birthday anniversary.
In the midst of the argument a girl
from nearby caterers shop brought in
a birthday cake with mathematical
equations in sugar figures, around its
rim.
There we're 81 astronomers present.
DR.. PAUL. tried to divide the cake in
81 equal parts but the mathematics were
too intricate for him.
Men who think in terms of fourth,
fifth and sixth dimensions tried to help
him but finally we're obliged to call on
the caterers girl.
She solved the problem with a few
vigorous operations with knife.
Asks About Alterations