Radium and the Sun

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 22, 1903

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 16.

Radium and the Sun

It has been found that the recently discovered metal, radium, continuously emits heat and light without combustion and without change in its molecular structure. It remains spectroscopically identical after many months of this apparently uncompensated emission of energy. How it does it no one can tell. The scientists conjecture that it gathers up and converts into heat some form of energy that exists in objects unperceived about it; but they do not know. They have conjectured that the sun must be slowly consuming away, and that in time it will die out. But if radium can throw out light and heat continuously without change in its molecular structure, why may not the sun do the same thing? It is not composed of the same material, and it is not necessary that it should be. He who created radium to shine without shrinking can create suns to shine without dying.