The Source and Mode of Solar Energy Throughout the Universe

by Isaac W. Heysinger

THE SOURCE AND MODE
OF
SOLAR ENERGY.

CHAPTER I.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM OF SOLAR ENERGY.

In endeavoring to present a new and rational interpretation of the source and mode of solar energy, based upon the established principles of recent science, it becomes necessary to briefly cite the facts bearing upon the problem to be solved and the authorities for their support, as well as to describe concisely the different hypotheses at present in vogue, and to point out the well-established insufficiency of these theories, one and all, to account for or explain the difficulties encountered, and which so far have remained as an unsolved enigma. And this problem of solar energy is the grandest and most important question of all physics, for upon the light and heat of the sun depend all physical life and its consequences, animal and vegetable, past, present, and future. If within finite time, and relatively, compared with the enormous vistas of the past, a very brief time, this source of energy is to cease, and our whole system be involved in darkness and death, such darkness and death must be eternal; for the dead sun in his final stage of condensation will be as fixed and unchangeable as the operation of eternal laws can make it, and henceforth there can be no revival or reversals, no turning back of the hand upon the dial, while the laws of nature continue; and outside the uniform operation of the laws of nature there is no source, or mode, or continuance of solar energy conceivable. It is true that when our system shall have ran down to its culmination in death, other present systems may continue for a time to exist and new ones spring into being; but these, too, must inevitably follow the same course, and likewise end in eternal darkness, until finally the great experiment of creation shall have ended in eternal failure. The changes we see in progress around us, however, are not of this nature. The individual dies, but the forces which gave life and strength to the race persist, and others will take his place, and the same forces will continue to operate with constant renewals, since we draw our light and heat and life from without; but in the death of suns and their attendant planets there is no analogous process, for such suns are constantly expending their enormous energies in the support of life external to themselves, and only the smallest part of this energy, even, can ever be utilized by themselves or by other suns or planets under any mode of interpretation now in vogue, the boundless realms of so-called inert and empty space receiving the same proportionate quota of light and heat as the almost microscopic points in the sky which constitute the suns and systems we see, and practically all, or nearly all, of this enormous energy is an absolute dead waste; so that whether receiving new supplies from a constant rain of adjacent meteor streams, or from the gradual contraction of the solar volume, the vast realms of space are the useless recipients of what can never return to the sun again, and, of course, in such case the inevitable end can be predicted; for contraction of volume, with a given mass, must have an effective limit, and meteoric aggregation must also find an effective limit, if the planets are not to be thrown out of place as they continue to revolve around the sun.

All accepted theories begin with a primordial impulse, the energies of which are of necessity constantly frittered away and wasted, until finally all light and heat and life must cease to exist, and that at a stage in which no further impulse can ever be given, since the whole universe will have passed through every possible stage of degradation down to the final one of universal and eternal death. And yet this is the best that science has to suggest; the only comfort offered us is that it will not happen in our time, and so, “after us the deluge.” The nebular hypothesis, so called, of Laplace, has required much modification, in the light of more recent science, but the essential principles of this theory are still generally accepted, for they fairly well account for the primal connection of the sun and planets, and the position of the central sun within, with the orbital and rotational planetary movements, as no other theory has yet done. By this theory the limits of our solar system were once occupied by an attenuated gaseous nebula containing within itself all the matter which now forms our solar system. This great nebular mass, primordially assumed, was given by gravity a slow but gradually increasing rotation upon its center; the force of gravity acted more strongly upon this rotating body as it contracted, so that rings of nebulous matter were successively thrown off, which coalesced into single masses and these finally into planets. These planetary globes themselves, as they coalesced and contracted, left behind or threw off rings of their outer matter, which, in turn, became moons, and finally our solar system with its central sun was evolved as we now see it; development continued, the planets cooled and condensed, life appeared when the conditions became suitable, and the original progressive condensation of the central mass—the sun—still continuing, the evolution of light and heat continues, and will continue in a correlative degree. As our moon has passed, apparently, beyond the stage of life, and is cold, airless, waterless, and dead, so will the earth pass; and the larger planets, such as Jupiter and Saturn, which have not yet reached the life stage of condensation, are still hot, but they, too, will pass through the present stage of the earth, then through that in which the moon now is; and the central sun, still glowing, but more and more dimly, will itself pass through the stages in which Jupiter and Saturn now are, then through that of our present earth, and finally into that of the moon, long before which time the emission of all light and heat will have ceased from the sun to its encircling planets, and finally the sun itself will sink into eternal frigidity, and all its store of light and heat will have been dissipated into boundless space, and the possibility of anything resembling what we know as life will have been forever extinguished. In considering the question of the sun’s energy, the author of the article “Sun,” in Appleton’s Cyclopædia, says, “How to account for the supply of the prodigious amount of heat constantly radiated from the solar surface has offered a boundless field of hypothesis. One conjecture is that the sun is now giving off the heat imparted to it at its creation, and that it is gradually cooling down (1). Another ascribed it to combustion (2), and a third to currents of electricity (3). Newton and Buffon conjectured that comets might be the aliment of the sun (4); and of late years a somewhat similar theory (first broached by Mr. Waterston in 1853) has been in vogue,—viz., that a stream of meteoric matter constantly pouring into the sun from the regions of space supplies its heat, by the conversion into it of the arrested motion (5). As the sun may, indeed, derive a small amount of heat from this cause, it deserves more attention than previous conjectures. But conjecture and hypothesis may be said to have given place to views which claim a higher title, as it is now becoming generally recognized, in accordance with modern physical theories of heat, that in the gravitation of the sun’s mass toward its center, and in its consequent condensation, sufficient heat must be evolved to supply the present radiation, enormous as this undoubtedly is. It appears to be susceptible of full demonstration that a contraction of the sun’s volume of a given definite amount, which is yet so slight as to be invisible to the most powerful telescope, is competent to furnish a heat-supply equal to all that can have been emitted during historical periods. According to this theory, then (which is largely due to the development by Helmholtz of Mayer’s great generalization), the sun’s mass remains unaltered, and its temperature nearly constant, while its size is slowly diminishing as it contracts; so slowly, however, that the supply may be reckoned on through periods almost infinite as measured by the known past of our race, and which are in any case to be counted by millions of years (6).” To these must be added the hypothesis of Dr. Siemens, fully described in Professor Proctor’s “Mysteries of Time and Space.” This ingenious theory, in brief, is that the rotation of the sun on its axis causes a suction in the manner of a fan, at the poles, and a tangential projection, at the equator, of a disk-like stream of gaseous matter into space. The light and heat of the sun, dispersed through space, slowly but continuously act upon the compound gases with which space is universally pervaded to disassociate them into their elements. The disassociated gases thus sucked in at the solar poles at an extremely low temperature are brought into a state of combustion by friction and condensation, thus generating new supplies of light and heat, and the gases thus reunited by combustion are again projected into space, to be again slowly disassociated by the operation of the sun’s light and heat. The result of this combustion is to form aqueous vapor and carbonic acid and carbonic oxide, and these gases, when disassociated in space, are resolved into carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, which again and again are thus recombined and again and again decomposed as they pass over the sun’s surface (7).

The seven hypotheses above described are the only ones now in vogue, and a brief analysis will show that no single one of them, nor all combined, will give sufficient results to account for the essential difficulties or known conditions of the problem. The first and second hypotheses are answered by the fact set forth by Helmholtz (Popular Scientific Lectures, article “On the Origin of the Planetary System”), that, if the mass of the sun were composed of the two elements capable by combination of producing the greatest possible light and heat,—to wit, hydrogen and oxygen in the proportions in which they unite to form water,—“calculation shows that under the above supposition the heat resulting from their combustion would be sufficient to keep up the radiation of heat from the sun three thousand and twenty-one years. That, it is true, is a long time, but even profane history teaches that the sun has lighted and warmed us for three thousand years, and geology puts it beyond doubt that this period must be extended to millions of years.”

The third hypothesis relates to currents of electricity. We have no knowledge of currents of electricity which could produce, however multiplied or intensified, such light and heat as are constantly poured forth from the sun into all space. That electricity is the intermediate cause of our sun’s energy, and of all solar energy, it is the purpose of this work to demonstrate, but not electric currents, which find their attractiveness to theorists in the vague suggestion of which Professor Proctor speaks, referring to comets, in his article on “Cometic Mysteries,” “that perhaps this is an electrical phenomenon; perhaps that other feature is electrical, too; perhaps all or most of the phenomena of comets depend on electricity.” But he adds, “It is so easy to make such suggestions, so difficult to obtain evidence in their favor having the slightest scientific value. Still, I hold the electrical idea to be well worth careful study. Whatever credit may hereafter be given to any electrical theory of comets will be solely and entirely due to those who may help to establish it upon a basis of sound evidence,—none whatever to the mere suggestion, which has been made time and again since it was first advanced by Fontanelle.” It will be seen that the present work, in demonstrating the true source and mode of solar energy, in itself presents a full and sufficient explanation of all the cometic mysteries referred to, as well as all those pertaining to other solar systems in space, and the multifarious phenomena which they present. Indeed, the philosophic mind will not be satisfied with the sufficiency of any hypothesis which will not unlock the mysteries and clearly explain the phenomena of other systems,—of comets, variable and temporary stars, double stars, and all the complicated celestial economy which to the eye of the mere observer presents a bewildering scene of the operation of independent and inscrutable forces. The fifth hypothesis cited, that of meteoric impact, doubtless plays a part, as we know from the generation of light and heat by the constant passage of similar bodies through our own atmosphere. And we know, of course, that the sun, by its vastly-increased attraction, must be subjected to the constant impact of such meteoric bodies in enormous numbers. But the fatal defect in the theory is that such impacts, to produce the radiant energy of the sun, must constantly add to its mass in like proportion, and as the motions and distances of the planets in their orbits are regulated and preserved by virtue of the substantially constant mass of the sun, any progressive and considerable increase in its mass must constantly bring the planets nearer and nearer, and thus increase their orbital velocity. Helmholtz quotes from Sir William Thomson’s investigation, that, “assuming it to hold, the mass of the sun should increase so rapidly that the consequences would have shown themselves in the accelerated motion of the planets. The entire loss of heat from the sun cannot, at all events, be produced in this way; at the most a portion, which, however, may not be inconsiderable.” R. Kalley Miller, in “The Romance of Astronomy,” says, “But more recent observations have led Sir William Thomson to a modification of his theory. He has calculated that if the meteoric shower were sufficiently heavy to make up for the sun’s whole expenditure of heat, the matter of the corona must be so dense as seriously to perturb the orbits of certain comets which pass very close to his surface,—a result which is found not to be the case. But the meteoric theory is only thrown back a step. If the sun’s mass were originally formed, as is not at all improbable, by the agglomeration of these particles, Sir William Thomson has calculated that the heat generated by their thus falling together would be sufficient to account for a supply of twenty million years of solar heat at the present rate of emission. And thus, though the meteors are not sufficient to maintain the energy of our system unimpaired, they may yet have been the original storehouse from which all that energy was derived …. But if the economy of our system be spared long enough, the day must come when the sun with age has become wan; when the matter of the corona has all been drawn in and used up without avail; when the lavish luxuriance with which he has showered abroad his light and heat has finally exhausted all his stores. He has still power, aided by the resisting medium, to drag his satellites one by one down upon his surface; and the shock of each successive impact will, for a brief period, give him a fresh tenure of life. When the earth crashes into the sun it will supply him with a store of heat for nearly a century, while Jupiter’s large mass will extend the period by nearly thirty thousand years. But when the last of the planets is swallowed up, the sun’s energies will rapidly die out and a deep and deathly gloom gather about nature’s grave. Looking into the ages of a future eternity, we can see nothing but a cold and burnt-out mass remaining of that glorious orb which went forth in the morning of time, joyful as a bridegroom from his chamber, and rejoicing as a strong man to run a race.”

The sixth hypothesis is that to which most credence is now given. It is that of evolution of energy by condensation of volume. Professor Proctor (“The Sun as a Perpetual Machine”) says, “In company with this great mystery of seeming waste comes the yet more difficult problem, how to explain the apparent continuance of solar light and heat during millions of years. We know from the results of geological research that the earth has been exposed to the action of the solar rays with their present activity during at least a hundred million years. Yet it is difficult to see how, on any hypothesis of the generation of solar heat, or by combining together all possible modes of heat generation, a supply for more than twenty millions of years in the past and a possible supply for as long a period in the future can be accounted for.” Of these vast periods of terrestrial existence in the past we quote the following from a recent publication:

“Professor C. D. Wolcott expresses the opinion that geologic time is not to be measured by hundreds of years, but simply by tens of millions. This is widely different from the conclusion arrived at by Sir Charles Lyell, who, basing his estimate on modifications of certain specimens of marine life, assigned 240,000,000 years as the required geological period; Darwin claimed 200,000,000 years; Crowell, about 72,000,000; Geike, from 73,000,000 upward; McGee, Upham, and other recent authorities claim from 100,000,000 up to 680,000,000.”