Economic Value
In view of past experience in science it would hence be a rash prediction to assert that the investigation of the conditions in distant stars can have no practical application upon earth. It may be of interest to point out one possible application of astrophysical research.
It is generally agreed that one of the most important economic problems of the not far distant future will be the provision of sources of energy to replace our rapidly depleting supplies of coal and oil. It appears now that the most probable solution of this problem will consist in the development of some method for utilizing the inexhaustible stores of energy contained in the atoms of matter. Modern research on conditions in the stars has made it practically certain that the enormous supply of energy, which has been radiated into space for aeons of time from these bodies, can only be maintained undiminished by the energy released by the transformation of atoms in the interior of the stars, where conditions of temperature and pressure prevail at present unattainable in terrestrial laboratories. The most hopeful line of attack upon this tremendously important economic problem hence seems to lie in the systematic astrophysical investigation of conditions in the stars supplemented by physical and chemical researches on the structure of the atom.