Another Theory in Science
By L. A. S.
THE daily papers are telling about a “great revolution in science.” There have been great revolutions in the past, since the days when men believed that earth, air, fire, and water were the four elements of which everything was composed; but it was believed that modern science was not susceptible of any great revolution. It had settled things with such sureness, it had employed so many and so wonderful resources for discovering the exact truth, that any serious disturbance of its conclusions was considered out of the question. Even though its conclusions were contrary to the statements of the Bible, they must be accepted, and the Bible discarded if necessary, since science, and especially modern science, settled everything beyond a doubt. Now, however, we have arrived at another revolution in science, and what has been firmly believed for many years and accepted without question by all scientific students of the day, must be discarded as an exploded theory. Modern science is forced to admit that it has been saying “certainly” where it should only have said “perhaps.” The cause of this sudden overturning of long-standing scientific dogmas is the wonderful newly discovered metal, radium. Experiments and observations made with this most rare and remarkable substance have, we are told, led scientists to the conclusion that the elements are not stable, as was supposed, that atoms are not the ultimate indivisible units of which matter is composed, and that there is but one ultimate element in all matter, the nature of matter and the difference between one kind of matter and another being due to the number of ultimate elements or “ions” in each atom of the substance. The “ions” themselves are all precisely alike; but a change in the number of “ions” composing the atom makes a total change in the substance which the atoms compose. This is the theory which, if press reports be true, is now advanced. We quote from the Chicago Tribune the following statements on this subject, furnished by its London correspondent, on the occasion of a recent lecture on radium by Professor Lodge, one of the foremost scientists of Great Britain:— The world’s foremost searchers after the ultimate secrets of the universe have at length committed themselves to the stupendous theory, for some time foreshadowed and now apparently substantiated by study, of the new substance, radium. Crookes, the other day in Berlin, and Lodge and Curie, this week in London, have confidently proclaimed that it is easy to define this great revolution in science in scarcely more than a sentence, but to comprehend it is almost as far beyond the power of the human mind as the idea of eternity or infinite space. The old theory that the atoms of elements consist of indivisible units of matter now is definitely discarded. Instead, we now are told that each atom is a whole stellar system of infinitely smaller but absolutely identical units, all in a regular orbital motion. The nature or identity of each substance depends upon the number of such ions contained in each atom. Thus 11,200 ions in each atom produces what we know as oxygen, 37,200 of the same ions if combined in a single atom would yield what we regard as gold. The nature of these ions is, for want of a better word, electrical. In other words, electricity and matter are one and the same thing. This theory has been more or less familiar to scientific men for two or three years, but it has been undemonstrable until recently. What Roentgen rays suggested now radium seems to furnish complete. Professor Curie’s examination of radium and other phenomena leads Professor Lodge and his associates to believe that matter is not stable in its atoms, as heretofore supposed. Everybody is familiar with the disintegration of matter, which means a rearrangement or recombination of the elements. Thus water may be separated into oxygen and hydrogen, but it never before was imagined that the atoms themselves were capable of disintegration. Professor Lodge suggests this is a notable process of nature, yet it is proceeding at a rate so slow that it baffles the powers of conception of the human mind to estimate the length of time required. In radium alone it proceeds so rapidly that the phenomena is easily observed. The Tribune correspondent concludes with the statement that according to Professor Lodge “we clearly are on the verge of the greatest revelations of science yet vouchsafed to mankind—a knowledge so gigantic that it is only limited by the capacity of the human mind to receive it.” In view of all this, it would certainly become modern science to assume a humbler attitude, and speak with less of an air of infallibility in setting forth its conclusions regarding the origin and destiny of terrestrial things. Christianity is the true science of the hidden mysteries which are so far beyond the reach of the human mind that they can not be grasped through what the world calls science. They can be brought to man only through faith. By faith we reach even to infinite heights of truth, and lay hold upon knowledge which otherwise would be possible only to the mind of God.