However doubtful this conclusion as to the rarity of solar systems may be, it is a useful corrective to the view too facilely adopted which looks upon every star as a likely minister to life. We know the prodigality of Nature. How many acorns are scattered for one that grows to an oak? And need she be more careful of her stars than of her acorns? If indeed she has no grander aim than to provide a home for her greatest experiment, Man, it would be just like her methods to scatter a million stars whereof one might haply achieve her purpose.
The number of possible abodes of life severely restricted in this way at the outset may no doubt be winnowed down further. On our house-hunting expedition we shall find it necessary to reject many apparently eligible mansions on points of detail. Trivial circumstances may decide whether organic forms originate at all; further conditions may decide whether life ascends to a complexity like ours or remains in a lower form. I presume, however, that at the end of the weeding out there will be left a few rival earths dotted here and there about the universe.
A further point arises if we have especially in mind contemporaneous life. The time during which man has been on the earth is extremely small compared with the age of the earth or of the sun. There is no obvious physical reason why, having once arrived, man should not continue to populate the earth for another ten billion years or so; but—well, can you contemplate it? Assuming that the stage of highly developed life is a very small fraction of the inorganic history of the star, the rival earths are in general places where conscious life has already vanished or is yet to come. I do not think that the whole purpose of the Creation has been staked on the one planet where we live; and in the long run we cannot deem ourselves the only race that has been or will be gifted with the mystery of consciousness. But I feel inclined to claim that at the present time our race is supreme; and not one of the profusion of stars in their myriad clusters looks down on scenes comparable to those which are passing beneath the rays of the sun.
[28] A very much larger radius of space (
light years) has recently been proposed by Hubble; but the basis of his calculation, though concerned with spiral nebulae, is different and to my mind unacceptable. It rests on an earlier theory of closed space proposed by Einstein which has generally been regarded as superseded. The theory given above (due to W. de Sitter) is, of course, very speculative, but it is the only clue we possess as to the dimensions of space.
[29] It seems to have been a fortunate circumstance that the pioneers of Martian photography had no suitable photographic telescopes and had to adapt visual telescopes—thus employing visual (yellow) light which, as it turned out, was essential for good results.
[30] Mars is not seen under favourable conditions except from low latitudes and high altitudes. Astronomers who have not these advantages are reluctant to form a decided opinion on the many controversial points that have arisen.
Chapter IX
THE QUANTUM THEORY
The Origin of the Trouble. Nowadays whenever enthusiasts meet together to discuss theoretical physics the talk sooner or later turns in a certain direction. You leave them conversing on their special problems or the latest discoveries; but return after an hour and it is any odds that they will have reached an all-engrossing topic—the desperate state of their ignorance. This is not a pose. It is not even scientific modesty, because the attitude is often one of naïve surprise that Nature should have hidden her fundamental secret successfully from such powerful intellects as ours. It is simply that we have turned a corner in the path of progress and our ignorance stands revealed before us, appalling and insistent. There is something radically wrong with the present fundamental conceptions of physics and we do not see how to set it right.