Modern scientific ideas : especially in the idea of discontinuity / by Sir Oliver Lodge, F.R.S.

  • Lodge, Oliver, Sir, 1851-1940.
Date:
1927
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Modern scientific ideas : especially in the idea of discontinuity / by Sir Oliver Lodge, F.R.S. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    up into activity again by some cataclysm, the like of which we also see occurring, every now and then, in un¬ expected and unforetold fashion. It used to be thought, and is still sometimes taught, that all energy is running down and getting dissipated or frittered away, so that the activity, not only of the sun, but even of the whole material universe, must come to an end. But this idea of the dissipation or degradation of energy I do not put among the most fundamental of modern scientific ideas, for we are beginning to suspect that there may be a renovating or resuscitating cause, about which it is best to hold judgment in suspense. We cannot be sure that a cyclical or recurrent or periodic activity, con¬ tinuing without cessation for ever, is not a characteristic of the material universe as a whole. Likened to a great Loom, from the oscillations of which there steadily emerges a woven fabric of beauty and design, the pro¬ duct or outcome of the periodic working of the material universe may be sought in a gradual increase or rise in spiritual values—a fluctuating, but on the whole pro¬ gressive, improvement in higher and still higher qualities of life and mind—magnum Jovis incremcntum. The question arises whether evolution applies not only to living things and to the planets and suns in space, but also to the atoms of which matter is composed. Have they existed unchanged from all eternity, or have they, too, been built up by a gradual process from simpler ingredi¬ ents? It is only of late that we have begun to ask that question. Fifty years ago we might have denied that the atoms were subject to evolution. Now we should certainly not deny, though some might hesitate to assert, that they were. The strong probability is that the electric units with which part of this book is concerned have paired off and built themselves up into atoms, not sud¬ denly, but gradually, no matter how rapid some of the atomic processes may be. The further question will then arise, What was the origin of the electric units? We cannot answer. When we come to ultimate origins science is dumb; we are confronted with the problem of