The Universe a Vast Electric Organism

by Geo. W. Warder

He says this dark star, many times the size of our earth, striking the sun, would destroy it and our earth and planetary system by fire. All life and combustible material, including stones and the surface of the sun and planets, he insists, would be utterly consumed by the heat engendered by such a collision. Now, I contend, in the first place, that such an event is virtually impossible; and if it were possible, a star of many times the size of our earth, coming in collision with the sun, would make little more impression on it than a dozen hogsheads of dynamite thrown against the surface of the moon. Both would do great local damage to the spot and vicinity where they struck, but neither would produce any great general disturbance and injury to these orbs. Many times the size of the earth would mean naturally something like a dozen times the size of the earth.

Let us estimate the general result by comparison. The sun is one million three hundred thousand times larger than the earth. It is so large that if we could drop our earth into the center of the sun, our moon, which is two hundred and forty thousand miles from us, would only be about half way to the circumference or outer rim of the sun. Now, a star many times the size of our earth, striking the surface of the sun, would create great heat by the compact, and great distraction in the locality where it struck; and would likely imbed itself in the sun, like large meteors do on the earth, and become a good sized mountain on the sun's surface. It would not increase the electric currents or radiation, of the sun sufficient to melt the snow on the mountains of the tropics or set fire to a haystack on the earth. Its effect on the earth would not be excessive in temperature, and would be very temporary. For my theory is that the sun sends only such currents of electricity to the earth as the earth draws and demands by its opposite polarity.

Only a great sun a thousand or a million times larger than our earth would make any great impression on the sun in case of a collision; and then it would not result in its destruction, or that of the earth and planets. Its size and power would be increased, but that would not necessarily increase the heat of the planets, if, as I contend, the sun could only send them the electric currents the planets draw by reason of their opposite polarity; just as a receiving station of wireless telegraphy receives only the electric currents intended for it because of the peculiar attracting power it possesses.

I am aware that the recent flaring out in light, and increase in size of the star Nova Persei in the constellation of Perseus, has given plausibility to the conjecture of some astronomers that it was caused by a collision between two suns. But I think the better opinion is that this star is a new sun, partly nebulous and in its formative state; and that it was visited by a great cloud or swarm of meteors, which produced the great illumination which flared out into space for a few days and then subsided.

Its former small size, to which it has returned, and its present nebulous condition, or the nebulæ that surrounds it, seems to fully justify this conclusion. I do not believe there ever has been or ever will be a collision among the suns or planets. The wisdom of the Creator, as manifested in the great universal laws of electro-magnetism, forbid it. If such a catastrophe was likely ever to occur, it would have happened many times since the history of the race began, and we would have had many undoubted demonstrations of the direful uncertainty of the life of the suns and planets and the varying chances and unstable condition of the universe.

Let us hear the conclusion of Prof. Newcomb's hypothesis in the last words of the last man on the earth, in the person of the professor of physics: "Such is the course of evolution. The sun, which for millions of years gave light and heat to our system and supported life on the earth, was about to sink into exhaustion and become a cold and inert mass. Its energy could not be revived except by such a catastrophe as has occurred. The sun is restored to what it was before there was any earth on which it could shed its rays, and will in time be ready to run its course anew. In order that a race may be renewed, it must die like an individual. Untold ages must once more elapse while life is reappearing on earth and developing in higher forms."

This is the present accepted scientific theory. But is it right? According to my conception, it is not. The sun is not growing old, or cold, or feeble, nor can it "sink into exhaustion." Nature, on this earth, under electric law and process, is ever renewing herself. And it is the same in all suns and planets. Nature's curriculum of eternal processes is continuous change and evolution. Her processes of renewal and purification are so perfect here on earth, that our most luscious fruits and vegetables, and our most beautiful and fragrant flowers come from the rank manure of the farmer's stable. The fertilizers of our soil are the decayed excrement of bird and beast and the most loathsome decaying elements; yet, through nature's evolving and purifying process they become wheat and corn, plant, vegetable and flower, and our most wholesome, acceptable and nutritious food; and if we live many years in the same neighborhood we eat the same food over and over many times, and the cattle and all living creatures do the same thing.

The atoms that compose our bodies have been used over and over again many times. They have been in the bodies of millions of men and animals, plants and vegetables before we used them, and will be in millions of bodies yet uncreated. They have been tossed by winds, hurled and threshed about by tornadoes and cyclones, drowned in the sea, and buried in the earth and often digested by other animals before they came to rest under balanced electric forces in our bodies.

Every atom in our bodies have been to the sun and back billions of times and will be again. They have been renewed by the electric currents of the sun, by the energy of the soil, by the electro-magnetic ether of space, and are as eternal as law and destiny.

In like manner, the elements of the sun are constantly being renewed and invigorated, and he has an area of six billions of miles in diameter from which to draw virgin atoms, and like a great sea of inexhaustible force, it is the fountain from which he receives his measureless power and indestructible life and energy. For he is the central dynamo and electric heart of the solar system, and with his family of planets is floating in a boundless sea of electro-magnetism that has no limit of life and energy. The sun may send a different kind of wireless electricity to each of the planets, and each of the planets may return a different kind of electricity to the sun. Thus these electric currents may pass and repass between sun and planets and be re-energized and used over and over again, just as the atoms of our bodies and all earthly molecules are used over and over again.