Pioneers of Science Part 24

[Sigma](me^2 [square root]r) = constant.

That is one law, and the other is like it, but with inclination of orbit instead of excentricity, viz.:

[Sigma](m[theta]^2 [square root]r) = constant.

The value of each of these two constants can at any time be calculated. At present their values are small. Hence they always were and always will be small; being, in fact, invariable. Hence neither _e_ nor _r_ nor [theta] can ever become infinite, nor can their average value for the system ever become zero.

The planets may share the given amount of total excentricity and obliquity in various proportions between themselves; but even if it were all piled on to one planet it would not be very excessive, unless the planet were so small a one as Mercury; and it would be most improbable that one planet should ever have all the excentricity of the solar system heaped upon itself. The earth, therefore, never has been, nor ever will be, enormously nearer the sun than it is at present: nor can it ever get very much further off. Its changes are small and are periodic--an increase is followed by a decrease, like the swing of a pendulum.

The above two laws have been called the Magna Charta of the solar system, and were long supposed to guarantee its absolute permanence. So far as the theory of gravitation carries us, they do guarantee its permanence; but something more remains to be said on the subject in a future lecture (XVIII).

And now, finally, we come to a sublime speculation, thrown out by Laplace, not as the result of profound calculation, like the results. .h.i.therto mentioned, not following certainly from the theory of gravitation, or from any other known theory, and therefore not to be accepted as more than a brilliant hypothesis, to be confirmed or rejected as our knowledge extends. This speculation is the "Nebular hypothesis." Since the time of Laplace the nebular hypothesis has had ups and downs of credence, sometimes being largely believed in, sometimes being almost ignored. At the present time it holds the field with perhaps greater probability of ultimate triumph than has ever before seemed to belong to it--far greater than belonged to it when first propounded.

It had been previously stated clearly and well by the philosopher Kant, who was intensely interested in "the starry heavens" as well as in the "mind of man," and who shewed in connexion with astronomy also a most surprising genius. The hypothesis ought by rights perhaps to be known rather by his name than by that of Laplace.

The data on which it was founded are these:--Every motion in the solar system known at that time took place in one direction, and in one direction only. Thus the planets revolve round the sun, all going the same way round; moons revolve round the planets, still maintaining the same direction of rotation, and all the bodies that were known to rotate on their own axis did so with still the same kind of spin. Moreover, all these motions take place in or near a single plane. The ancients knew that sun moon and planets all keep near to the ecliptic, within a belt known as the zodiac: none strays away into other parts of the sky.

Satellites also, and rings, are arranged in or near the same plane; and the plane of diurnal spin, or equator of the different bodies, is but slightly tilted.

Now all this could not be the result of chance. What could have caused it? Is there any connection or common ancestry possible, to account for this strange family likeness? There is no connection now, but there may have been once. Must have been, we may almost say. It is as though they had once been parts of one great ma.s.s rotating as a whole; for if such a rotating ma.s.s broke up, its parts would retain its direction of rotation. But such a ma.s.s, filling all s.p.a.ce as far as or beyond Saturn, although containing the materials of the whole solar system in itself, must have been of very rare consistency. Occupying so much bulk it could not have been solid, nor yet liquid, but it might have been gaseous.

Are there any such gigantic rotating ma.s.ses of gas in the heaven now?

Certainly there are; there are the nebulae. Some of the nebulae are now known to be gaseous, and some of them at least are in a state of rotation. Laplace could not have known this for certain, but he suspected it. The first distinctly spiral nebula was discovered by the telescope of Lord Rosse; and quite recently a splendid photograph of the great Andromeda nebula, by our townsman, Mr. Isaac Roberts, reveals what was quite unsuspected--and makes it clear that this prodigious ma.s.s also is in a state of extensive and majestic whirl.

Very well, then, put this problem:--A vast ma.s.s of rotating gas is left to itself to cool for ages and to condense as it cools: how will it behave? A difficult mathematical problem, worthy of being attacked to-day; not yet at all adequately treated. There are those who believe that by the complete treatment of such a problem all the history of the solar system could be evolved.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 80.--Lord Rosse's drawing of the spiral nebula in Canes Venatici, with the stub marks of the draughtsman unduly emphasised into features by the engraver.]

Laplace pictured to himself this ma.s.s shrinking and thereby whirling more and more rapidly. A spinning body shrinking in size and retaining its original amount of rotation, as it will unless a brake is applied, must spin more and more rapidly as it shrinks. It has what mathematicians call a constant moment of momentum; and what it loses in leverage, as it shrinks, it gains in speed. The ma.s.s is held together by gravitation, every particle attracting every other particle; but since all the particles are describing curved paths, they will tend to fly off tangentially, and only a small excess of the gravitation force over the centrifugal is left to pull the particles in, and slowly to concentrate the nebula. The mutual gravitation of the parts is opposed by the centrifugal force of the whirl. At length a point is reached where the two forces balance. A portion outside a certain line will be in equilibrium; it will be left behind, and the rest must contract without it. A ring is formed, and away goes the inner nucleus contracting further and further towards a centre. After a time another ring will be left behind in the same way, and so on. What happens to these rings?

They rotate with the motion they possess when thrown or shrunk off; but will they remain rings? If perfectly regular they may; if there be any irregularity they are liable to break up. They will break into one or two or more large ma.s.ses, which are ultimately very likely to collide and become one. The revolving body so formed is still a rotating gaseous ma.s.s; and it will go on shrinking and cooling and throwing off rings, like the larger nucleus by which it has been abandoned. As any nucleus gets smaller, its rate of rotation increases, and so the rings last thrown off will be spinning faster than those thrown off earliest. The final nucleus or residual central body will be rotating fastest of all.

The nucleus of the whole original ma.s.s we now see shrunk up into what we call the sun, which is spinning on its axis once every twenty-five days.

The rings successively thrown off by it are now the planets--some large, some small--those last thrown off rotating round him comparatively quickly, those outside much more slowly. The rings thrown off by the planetary gaseous ma.s.ses as they contracted have now become satellites; except one ring which has remained without breaking up, and is to be seen rotating round Saturn still.

One other similar ring, an abortive attempt at a planet, is also left round the sun (the zone of asteroids).

Such, crudely and baldly, is the famous nebular hypothesis of Laplace.

It was first stated, as has been said above, by the philosopher Kant, but it was elaborated into much fuller detail by the greatest of French mathematicians and astronomers.

The contracting ma.s.ses will condense and generate great quant.i.ties of heat by their own shrinkage; they will at a certain stage condense to liquid, and after a time will begin to cool and congeal with a superficial crust, which will get thicker and thicker; but for ages they will remain hot, even after they have become thoroughly solid. The small ones will cool fastest; the big ones will retain their heat for an immense time. Bullets cool quickly, cannon-b.a.l.l.s take hours or days to cool, planets take millions of years. Our moon may be nearly cold, but the earth is still warm--indeed, very hot inside. Jupiter is believed by some observers still to glow with a dull red heat; and the high temperature of the much larger and still liquid ma.s.s of the sun is apparent to everybody. Not till it begins to sc.u.m over will it be perceptibly cooler.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 81.--Saturn.]

Many things are now known concerning heat which were not known to Laplace (in the above paragraph they are only hinted at), and these confirm and strengthen the general features of his hypothesis in a striking way; so do the most recent telescopic discoveries. But fresh possibilities have now occurred to us, tidal phenomena are seen to have an influence then wholly unsuspected, and it will be in a modified and amplified form that the philosopher of next century will still hold to the main features of this famous old Nebular Hypothesis respecting the origin of the sun and planets--the Evolution of the solar system.

NOTES TO LECTURE XII

The subject of stellar astronomy was first opened up by Sir William Herschel, the greatest observing astronomer.

_Frederick William Herschel_ was born in Hanover in 1738, and brought up as a musician. Came to England in 1756. First saw a telescope in 1773.

Made a great many himself, and began a survey of the heavens. His sister Caroline, born in 1750, came to England in 1772, and became his devoted a.s.sistant to the end of his life. Ura.n.u.s discovered in 1781. Music finally abandoned next year, and the 40-foot telescope begun. Discovered two moons of Saturn and two of Ura.n.u.s. Reviewed, described, and gauged all the visible heavens. Discovered and catalogued 2,500 nebulae and 806 double stars. Speculated concerning the Milky Way, the nebulosity of stars, the origin and growth of solar systems. Discovered that the stars were in motion, not fixed, and that the sun as one of them was journeying towards a point in the constellation Hercules. Died in 1822, eighty-four years old. Caroline Herschel discovered eight comets, and lived on to the age of ninety-eight.

LECTURE XII

HERSCHEL AND THE MOTION OF THE FIXED STARS

We may admit, I think, that, with a few notable exceptions, the work of the great men we have been recently considering was rather to complete and round off the work of Newton, than to strike out new and original lines.

This was the whole tendency of eighteenth century astronomy. It appeared to be getting into an adult and uninteresting stage, wherein everything could be calculated and predicted. Labour and ingenuity, and a severe mathematical training, were necessary to work out the remote consequences of known laws, but nothing fresh seemed likely to turn up.

Consequently men's minds began turning in other directions, and we find chemistry and optics largely studied by some of the greatest minds, instead of astronomy.

But before the century closed there was destined to arise one remarkable exception--a man who was comparatively ignorant of that which had been done before--a man unversed in mathematics and the intricacies of science, but who possessed such a real and genuine enthusiasm and love of Nature that he overcame the force of adverse circ.u.mstances, and entering the territory of astronomy by a by-path, struck out a new line for himself, and infused into the science a healthy spirit of fresh life and activity.

This man was William Herschel.

"The rise of Herschel," says Miss Clerke, "is the one conspicuous anomaly in the otherwise somewhat quiet and prosy eighteenth century. It proved decisive of the course of events in the nineteenth. It was unexplained by anything that had gone before, yet all that came after hinged upon it. It gave a new direction to effort; it lent a fresh impulse to thought. It opened a channel for the widespread public interest which was gathering towards astronomical subjects to flow in."

Herschel was born at Hanover in 1738, the son of an oboe player in a military regiment. The father was a good musician, and a cultivated man.

The mother was a German _Frau_ of the period, a strong, active, business-like woman, of strong character and profound ignorance. Herself unable to write, she set her face against learning and all new-fangled notions. The education of the sons she could not altogether control, though she lamented over it, but the education of her two daughters she strictly limited to cooking, sewing, and household management. These, however, she taught them well.

It was a large family, and William was the fourth child. We need only remember the names of his younger brother Alexander, and of his much younger sister Caroline.

They were all very musical--the youngest boy was once raised upon a table to play the violin at a public performance. The girls were forbidden to learn music by their mother, but their father sometimes taught them a little on the sly. Alexander was besides an ingenious mechanician.

At the age of seventeen, William became oboist to the Hanoverian Guards, shortly before the regiment was ordered to England. Two years later he removed himself from the regiment, with the approval of his parents, though probably without the approbation or consent of the commanding officer, by whom such removal would be regarded as simple desertion, which indeed it was; and George III. long afterwards handed him an official pardon for it.

At the age of nineteen, he was thus launched in England with an outfit of some French, Latin, and English, picked up by himself; some skill in playing the hautboy, the violin, and the organ, as taught by his father; and some good linen and clothing, and an immense stock of energy, provided by his mother.

He lived as musical instructor to one or two militia bands in Yorkshire, and for three years we hear no more than this of him. But, at the end of that time, a noted organist, Dr. Miller, of Durham, who had heard his playing, proposed that he should come and live with him and play at concerts, which he was very glad to do. He next obtained the post of organist at Halifax; and some four or five years later he was invited to become organist at the Octagon Chapel in Bath, and soon led the musical life of that then very fashionable place.

About this time he went on a short visit to his family at Hanover, by all of whom he was very much beloved, especially by his young sister Caroline, who always regarded him as specially her own brother. It is rather pitiful, however, to find that her domestic occupations still unfairly repressed and blighted her life. She says:--

"Of the joys and pleasures which all felt at this long-wished-for meeting with my--let me say my dearest--brother, but a small portion could fall to my share; for with my constant attendance at church and school, besides the time I was employed in doing the drudgery of the scullery, it was but seldom I could make one in the group when the family were a.s.sembled together."

While at Bath he wrote many musical pieces--glees, anthems, chants, pieces for the harp, and an orchestral symphony. He taught a large number of pupils, and lived a hard and successful life. After fourteen hours or so spent in teaching and playing, he would retire at night to instruct his mind with a study of mathematics, optics, Italian, or Greek, in all of which he managed to make some progress. He also about this time fell in with some book on astronomy.

In 1763 his father was struck with paralysis, and two years later he died.

William then proposed that Alexander should come over from Hanover and join him at Bath, which was done. Next they wanted to rescue their sister Caroline from her humdrum existence, but this was a more difficult matter. Caroline's journal gives an account of her life at this time that is instructive. Here are a few extracts from it:--

"My father wished to give me something like a polished education, but my mother was particularly determined that it should be a rough, but at the same time a useful one; and nothing further she thought was necessary but to send me two or three months to a sempstress to be taught to make household linen....