September 25, 2025 • 30 mins
Dive into Omega The Last Days of the World, a captivating science fiction novel written by Camille Flammarion in 1894. Set in the 25th century, this thought-provoking tale explores the impending threat of a carbonic-oxide comet on a collision course with Earth. Through its narrative, the novel delves into the philosophical and political ramifications of humanity facing its potential end. (Summary by Wikipedia)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section sixteen of Omega The Last Days of the World.
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information or two volunteer, please
visit LibriVox dot org. Omega The Last Days of the
(00:21):
World by Camille Flammarion epilogue. And the Angel lifted up
his hand to Heaven and swear by him that liveth
forever and ever, that there should be time no longer
Revelations ten six five. The Earth was dead. The other
(00:42):
planets also had died, one after the other. The Sun
was extinguished, but the stars still shone. There were still
suns and worlds. In the measureless duration of eternity, Time
and essentially relative conception is the determined by each world,
and even in each world, this conception is dependent upon
(01:06):
the consciousness of the individual. Each world measures its own duration.
The year of the Earth is not that of Neptune.
The latter is one hundred sixty four times the former,
and yet is not longer relatively to the absolute. There
is no common measure between time and eternity. In empty space,
(01:30):
there is no time, no years, no centuries, only the
possibility of a measurement of time which becomes real the
moment a revolving world appears. Without some periodic motion, no
conception whatever of time is possible. The Earth no longer existed,
(01:51):
no her celestial companion the little isle of Mars, nor
the beautiful sphere of Venus, nor the colossal world of Jupiter,
nor the strange universe of Saturn, which had lost its rings,
nor the slow moving Uranus and Neptune. Not even the
glorious Sun, in whose ficundating heat these mansions of the
(02:13):
heavens had basked for so many centuries. The Sun was
a dark ball. The planets also, and still this invisible
system sped on in the glacial cold of starry space.
So far as life is concerned, all these worlds were dead,
did not exist. They survived their past history, like the
(02:36):
ruins of the dead cities of Assyria, which the archaeologist
uncovers in the desert, moving on their way and darkness
through the invisible and the unknown. No genius, no magician,
could recall the vanished past, when the Earth floated, bathed
in light, with its broad green fields waking to the
morning sun, its rivers winding like long serpents through the
(03:00):
verdant meadows, its woods alive were the songs of birds,
its forest filled with deep and mysterious shadows, its seas
heaving with the tides or roaring in the tempest, its
mountain slopes furrowed with rushing streams and cascades, its gardens
enameled with flowers, its nests of birds and cradles of children,
(03:23):
and its toiling population, whose activity had transformed it, and
who lived so joyously, a life perpetuated by the delights
of an endless love. All this happiness seemed eternal. What
has become of those mornings and evenings, of those flowers
and those lovers, of that light and perfume, of those
(03:46):
harmonies and joys, of those beauties and dreams. All is
dead has disappeared in the darkness of night, the world dead,
all the planets dead, the Sun extinguished, the solar system annihilated,
Time itself suspended, Time lapses into eternity, But eternity remains,
(04:13):
and time is borne again. Before the existence of the Earth,
throughout an eternity, suns and worlds existed peopled with beings
like ourselves, millions of years before the Earth was They
were the past of the universe has been as brilliant
as the present. The future will be as the past.
(04:36):
The present is of no importance. In examining the past
history of the Earth. We might go back to a
time when our planet shone in space, a veritable sun,
appearing as Jupiter and Saturn do now shrouded in a
dense atmosphere charged with warm vapors, and we might follow
(04:56):
all its transformations down to the period of man. We
have seen that when its heat was entirely dissipated, its
waters absorbed, the aqueous vapor of its atmosphere gone, and
this atmosphere itself more or less absorbed. Our planet must
have resented the appearance of those great lunar deserts seen
(05:19):
through the telescope, with certain differences due to the actions
of causes peculiar to the Earth, with its final geographical configurations,
its dried up shores and water courses, a planetary corpse,
a dead and frozen world. It still bears, however, within
its bosom an unexpended energy that of its motion of
(05:43):
translation about the Sun. An energy which transformed into heat
by the sudden destruction of its motion, would suffice to
melt it and to reduce it in part to a
state of vapor, thus inaugurating a new epic, but for
an instant only. For if this motion of translation were destroyed,
(06:05):
the Earth would fall into the Sun, and its independent
existence would come to an end. If suddenly arrested, it
would move in a straight line toward the Sun with
an increasing velocity, and reach the Sun in sixty five days,
where its motion gradually arrested, it would move in a
(06:25):
spiral to be swallowed up at last in the central luminary.
The entire history of terrestrial life is before our eyes.
It has its commencement, and its end, and its duration. However,
many of the centuries which compose it is preceded and
followed by Eternity. Is indeed but a single instant lost
(06:51):
in eternity. For a long time, after the Earth had
ceased to be the abode of life, the colossal worlds
of Jupiter and sad, passing more slowly from their solar
to their planetary stage, reigned in their turn among the planets,
with the splendor of a vitality incomparably superior to that
(07:12):
of our Earth. But they also waxed old and descended
into the night of the tomb ki. Had the Earth,
like Jupiter, for example, retained long enough, the elements of
life death would have come only with the extinction of
the Sun. But the length of the life of a
world is proportional to its size and its elements of vitality.
(07:38):
The solar heat is due to two principal causes, the
condensation of the original nebula and the fall of meteorites.
According to the best established calculations of thermodynamics, the former
has produced a quantity of heat eighteen million times greater
(07:58):
than that which the Sun radiates yearly. Supposing the original
nebula was cold, which there is no reason to believe
was the case, it is therefore certain that the solar
temperature produced by this condensation far exceeded the above. If
condensation continues, the radiation of heat may go on for
(08:19):
centuries without loss. The heat emitted every second is equal
to that which would result from the combustion of eleven
quadrillions six hundred thousand milliards of tons of coal burning
at once. The Earth intercepts only one five hundred millionth
(08:40):
part of the radiant heat, and this one five hundredth
millionth suffices to maintain all terrestrial life. Of sixty seven
millions of light and heat rays which the Sun radiates
into space, only one is received and yezed by the planets.
(09:02):
Well to maintain the source of heat, it is only
necessary that the rate of condensation should be such that
the Sun's diameter should decrease seventy seven meters a year,
or one kilometer in thirteen years. This contraction is so
gradual that it would be wholly imperceptible. Nine thousand, five
(09:25):
hundred years would be required to reduce the diameter by
one single second of arc. Even if the Sun be
actually in a gaseous state, its temperature so farten growing
less or even remaining stationary, would increase by the very
fact of contraction. For if, on the one hand, the
(09:46):
temperature of a gaseous body falls when it condenses, on
the other hand, the heat generated by contraction is more
than sufficient to prevent a fall in temperature, and the
amount of heat increases until a liquid state is reached.
The Sun seems to have reached this stage. The condensation
(10:07):
of the Sun, whose density is only one fourth that
of the Earth, may thus of itself maintain for centuries.
At least four ten million years. The light and heat
of this brilliant star. But we have just spoken of
a second source of heat, the fall of meteorites. One
(10:27):
hundred and forty six million meteorites fall upon the Earth yearly.
A vastly greater number fall into the Sun because of
its great retraction. If their mass equals about the one
hundredth part of the mass of the Earth, their fall
would suffice to maintain the temperature, not by their combustion,
(10:48):
for if the Sun itself was being consumed, it would
not have lasted more than six thousand years, but by
the sudden transformation of the energy of motion into heat,
the velocity of impact being six hundred and fifty thousand
meters per second. So great is the solar attraction. If
(11:08):
the Earth should fall into the Sun, it would make
good for ninety five years the actual loss of solar energy.
Venus would make good this loss for eighty four years,
Mercury for seven, Mars for thirteen, Jupiter four thirty two thousand,
two hundred and fifty four, Saturn for nine thousand, six
(11:31):
hundred and fifty two, Uranus four one thousand, six hundred
and ten, and Neptune for one thousand, eight hundred and
ninety years. That is to say, the fall of all
the planets into the Sun would produce heat enough to
maintain the present rate of expenditure for about forty six
thousand years. It is therefore certain that the fall of
(11:55):
meteors greatly lengthens the life of the Sun. One thirty
third birred millionth of the solar mass added each year
would compensate for the loss, and half of this would
be sufficient if we admit that condensation shares equally with
the fall of meteorites in the maintenance of solar heat,
(12:15):
centuries would have to pass before any acceleration of the
planet's velocities would be apparent. Owing to these two causes alone,
we may therefore admit a future for the Sun of
at least twenty million years, and this period cannot but
be increased by other unknown causes, to say nothing of
(12:35):
an encounter with a swarm of meteorites. The Sun therefore
was the last living member of the system, the last
animated by the warmth of life. But the Sun also
went out, after having so long poured upon his celestial
children his vivifying beams. The black spots upon his surface
(12:58):
increased in number and in exten his brilliant photosphere grew dull,
and his hitherto dazzling surface became congealed. An enormous red
ball took the place of the dazzling center of the
vanished worlds. For a long time, this enormous star maintained
(13:18):
a high surface temperature and a sort of phosphorus and atmosphere.
Its virgin soil, illumined by the light of the stars
and by the electric influences which formed a kind of atmosphere,
gave birth to a marvelous flora, to an unknown fauna,
to beings differing absolutely in organization from those who had
(13:38):
succeeded each other upon the worlds of its system. But
for the Sun also the end came, and the hour
sounded on the time piece of destiny, when the whole
Solar System was stricken from the book of life, and
one after another, the stars, each one of which is
a sun a solar system, share the same fate, and
(14:02):
yet the universe continue to exist as it does to
day PSI. The science of mathematics tells us the Solar
System does not appear to possess at present more than
the one four hundred and fifty fourth part of the
transformable energy which it had in the nebulous state. Although
(14:23):
this remainder constitutes a fund whose magnitude confounds our imagination,
it will also some day be exhausted. Later the transformation
will be complete for the entire universe, resulting in a
general equilibrium of temperature and pressure. Energy will not then
be susceptible of transformation. This does not mean annihilation, a
(14:48):
word without meaning, nor does it mean the absence of
motion properly speaking, since the same sum of energy will
always exist in the form of atomic motion, but the
absence of all sensible motion, of all differentiation, the absolute
uniformity of conditions, that is to say, absolute death. Such
(15:13):
is the present statement of the science of mathematics. Experiment
and observation prove and on the one hand, the quantity
of matter, and on the other hand, the quantity of
energy also remains constant, whatever the change in form or
in position. But they also show that the universe tends
(15:36):
to a state of equilibrium, a condition in which its
heat will be uniformly distributed. The heat of the Sun
and of all the stars seems to be due to
the transformation of their initial energy of motion to molecular impacts.
The heat thus generated is being constantly radiated into space,
(15:57):
and this radiation will go on until every sun is
cooled down to the temperature of space itself. If we
admit that the sciences of today mechanics, physics, and mathematics,
are trustworthy, and that the laws which now control the
operations of nature and of reason are permanent, this must
(16:19):
be the fate of the universe. Far from being eternal,
the earth on which we live has had a beginning
in eternity a hundred million years, a thousand million years,
or centuries are as a day. There is an eternity
behind us and before us, and all apparent duration is
(16:40):
but a point. A scientific investigation of nature and acquaintance
with its laws raises therefore the question already raised by
the theologians, whether Plato Zoroasta, Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas,
or some young seminarian who has just taken orders, what
(17:03):
was God doing before the creation of the universe and
what will he do after its end? Or under a
less anthromorphic form, Since God is unknowable, what was the
condition of the universe prior to the present order of things?
And what will it be after this order has passed away.
(17:25):
Note that the question is the same whether we admit
a personal God reasoning and acting toward a definite end,
or whether we deny the existence of any spiritual being
and admit only the existence of indestructible atoms and forces
representing an invariable sum of energy. In the first case,
(17:49):
why should God, an eternal and uncreated power, remain inactive?
Or having remained inactive, satisfied with the absolute infinity of
his nature, which nothing could augment, why did he change
this state and create matter and force? The theologian may
(18:10):
reply because it was his good pleasure, But philosophy is
not satisfied with this change in the divine purpose. In
the second case, since the origin of the present condition
of things only dates back a certain time, and since
there can be no effect without a cause, we have
the right to ask what was the condition of things
(18:34):
anterior to the formation of the present universe. Although energy
is indestructible, we certainly cannot deny the tendency toward its
universal dissipation, and this must lead to absolute repose and death,
for the conclusions of mathematics are irresistible. Nevertheless, we do
(18:56):
not concede this why, because the universe is not a
definite quantity or mega it is impossible to conceive of
a limit to the extension of matter. Limitless space, the
inexhaustible source of the transformation of potential energy into visible
(19:19):
motion and thence into heat and other forces confronts us,
and not a simple finished piece of mechanism running like
a clock and stopping forever. The future of the universe
is its past. If the universe were to have had
an end, this end would have been reached long ago,
(19:40):
and we should not be here to study this problem.
It is because our conceptions are finite that things have
a beginning and an end. We cannot conceive of an
absolutely endless series of transformations, either in the future or
in the past, nor that an equally endless series of
(20:02):
material combinations of planets, suns, sun systems, Milky ways, stellar
universes can succeed each other. Nevertheless, the heavens are there
to show us the infinite. Nor can we comprehend any
better the infinity of space or of time. Yet it
(20:24):
is impossible for us to conceive of a limit to either,
for our thought overleaps the limit and is impotent to
conceive of bounds, beyond which there is no space nor time.
One may travel for ever in any direction without reaching
a boundary, and as soon as any one affirms that
(20:47):
at a certain moment duration ceases, we refuse our ascent,
for we cannot confound time with the human measures of it.
These measures are reliantative and arbitrary. But time itself exists,
like space, independently of them. Suppress everything, space and time
(21:09):
would still remain, and that is to say, space, which
material things may occupy, and the possibility of the succession
of events. If this were not so, neither space nor
time would be really measurable, not even in thought, since
thought would not exist. But it is impossible for the
(21:33):
mind even to suppress either the one or the other.
Strictly speaking, it is neither space nor time that we
are speaking of, but infinity and eternity, relative to which
every measure, however great, is For a point, we do
not comprehend or conceive of infinite space or time, because
(21:56):
we are incapable of it. But this incapacit city does
not invalidate the existence of the absolute. In confessing that
we do not comprehend infinity, we feel it about us,
and that space as bounded by a wall or any barrier.
Whatever is in itself an absurd idea. And we are
(22:19):
equally incapable of denying the possibility of the existence, at
some instant of time, of a system of worlds whose
motions would measure time without creating it. Do our clocks
create time? No, they do, but measure it in the
presence of the Absolute. Our measures of both time and
(22:41):
space vanish, but the absolute remains. We live then, in
the infinite, without doubting it for an instant. The hand
which holds this pen is composed of eternal and indestructible elements,
and the atoms which constituted it existed in the solar nebula,
(23:02):
whence our planet came, and will exist forever. Your lungs,
breathe your brains, think with matter and forces which acted
millions of years ago and will act endlessly. And this
little globule which we inhabit, floats not at the center
of a limited universe, but in the depth of infinity,
(23:25):
as truly as does the most distant star which the
telescope can discover. The best definition of the universe ever
given to which there was nothing to add, is pascals
a sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere. It
is this infinity which assures the eternity of the universe. Stars, systems, myriads, milliards,
(23:52):
universes succeed each other without end in every direction. We
do not live near a center which does not exist.
And the Earth, like the farthest star, lies in the
fathomless infinite. No bounds to space, Fly in thought in
any direction with any velocity, for months, year, centuries, forever,
(24:16):
we shall meet with no limit, approach, no boundary. We
shall always remain in the vestibule of the infinite before us,
no bounds to time, Live in imagination through future ages,
add centuries to centuries, epic to epic. We shall never
(24:37):
attain the end. We shall always remain in the vestibule
of the eternity which opens before us. In our little
sphere of terrestrial observation, we see that through all the
transformations of matter and motion, the same quantity of each remains,
though under new forms. Living beings afford a perpetual illustration
(25:00):
of this. They are born, they grow by appropriating substances
from the world without, and when they die they break
up and restore to nature. The elements of which they
are composed, but by a law whose action never ceases,
other bodies are constituted from these same elements. Every star
(25:22):
may be likened to an organized being, even as regards
its internal heat. A body is alive so long as
respiration and the circulation of the blood makes it possible
for the various organs to perform their functions. When equilibrium
and repose are reached, death follows. But after death all
(25:42):
the substances of which the body was formed are wrought
into other beings. This solution is the prelude to recreation.
Analogy leads us to believe that the same is true
of the cosmos. Nothing can be destroyed. There is an
incommensurable power which we are obliged to recognize as limitless
(26:07):
in space and without beginning or end in time. And
this power is that which persists through all the changes
in those sensible appearances under which the universe presents itself
to us. For this reason, there will always be suns
and worlds not like ours, but still suns and worlds
(26:30):
succeeding each other through all eternity. And for us this
visible universe can only be changing appearance of the absolute
and eternal reality Alpha. It is in virtue of this
transcendent law. And long after the death of the Earth,
of the giant planets, and the Central Luminary, while our
(26:53):
old and darkened Sun was still speeding through boundless space
with its dead worlds on which terrestrial and planetary life
had once engaged in the futile struggle for daily existence,
another extinct Sun, issuing from the depths of infinity, collided
obliquely with it and brought it to rest. Then in
(27:13):
the vast night of space, from the shock of these
two mighty bodies was suddenly kindled a stupendous conflagration, and
an immense gaseous nebula was formed, which trembled for an
instant like a flaring flame, and then sped on into
regions unknown. Its temperature was several million degrees all which
(27:34):
here below had been earth, water, ere minerals, plants, atoms,
all which had constituted man, his flesh, his palpitating heart,
his flashing eye, his armed hand, his thinking brain, his
entrancing beauty, the victor and the vanquished, the executioner and
his victim, and those inferior souls still wearing the fetters
(27:57):
of matter all were changed in to fire, and so
were the worlds of Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and the rest.
It was the resurrection of visible nature, but those superior
souls which had acquired immortality continued to live forever in
the hierarchy of the invisible psychic universe. The conscious existence
(28:21):
of mankind had attained an ideal state. Mankind had passed
by transmigration through the worlds to a new life with God,
and freed from the burdens of matter, soared with an
endless progress in eternal light. The immense gaseous nebula, which
absorbed all former worlds thus transformed into vapor, began to
(28:43):
turn upon itself, and in the zones of condensation of
this primordial starmist new worlds were born as heretofore the
Earth was, And so another universe began, whose genesis some
future Moses and Laplaz would tell, a new creation, extra terrestrial, superhuman, inexhaustible,
(29:06):
resembling neither the Earth, nor Mars, nor Saturn nor the Sun.
And new humanities arose, new civilizations, new vanities, another Babylon,
another Thebes, and other Athens, another Rome and other Paris,
New palaces, temples, glories and loves, and all these things
(29:28):
possessed nothing of the Earth, whose very memory had passed
away like a shadow. And these universes passed away in
their turn, But infinite space remained peopled with worlds and
stars and souls and suns, and time went on forever,
(29:49):
for there can be neither end nor beginning. End of
Epilogue and end of Omega, the last days of the world.
Like Emille Flammarion,
Section sixteen of Omega The Last Days of the World.
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information or two volunteer, please
visit LibriVox dot org. Omega The Last Days of the
(00:21):
World by Camille Flammarion epilogue. And the Angel lifted up
his hand to Heaven and swear by him that liveth
forever and ever, that there should be time no longer
Revelations ten six five. The Earth was dead. The other
(00:42):
planets also had died, one after the other. The Sun
was extinguished, but the stars still shone. There were still
suns and worlds. In the measureless duration of eternity, Time
and essentially relative conception is the determined by each world,
and even in each world, this conception is dependent upon
(01:06):
the consciousness of the individual. Each world measures its own duration.
The year of the Earth is not that of Neptune.
The latter is one hundred sixty four times the former,
and yet is not longer relatively to the absolute. There
is no common measure between time and eternity. In empty space,
(01:30):
there is no time, no years, no centuries, only the
possibility of a measurement of time which becomes real the
moment a revolving world appears. Without some periodic motion, no
conception whatever of time is possible. The Earth no longer existed,
(01:51):
no her celestial companion the little isle of Mars, nor
the beautiful sphere of Venus, nor the colossal world of Jupiter,
nor the strange universe of Saturn, which had lost its rings,
nor the slow moving Uranus and Neptune. Not even the
glorious Sun, in whose ficundating heat these mansions of the
(02:13):
heavens had basked for so many centuries. The Sun was
a dark ball. The planets also, and still this invisible
system sped on in the glacial cold of starry space.
So far as life is concerned, all these worlds were dead,
did not exist. They survived their past history, like the
(02:36):
ruins of the dead cities of Assyria, which the archaeologist
uncovers in the desert, moving on their way and darkness
through the invisible and the unknown. No genius, no magician,
could recall the vanished past, when the Earth floated, bathed
in light, with its broad green fields waking to the
morning sun, its rivers winding like long serpents through the
(03:00):
verdant meadows, its woods alive were the songs of birds,
its forest filled with deep and mysterious shadows, its seas
heaving with the tides or roaring in the tempest, its
mountain slopes furrowed with rushing streams and cascades, its gardens
enameled with flowers, its nests of birds and cradles of children,
(03:23):
and its toiling population, whose activity had transformed it, and
who lived so joyously, a life perpetuated by the delights
of an endless love. All this happiness seemed eternal. What
has become of those mornings and evenings, of those flowers
and those lovers, of that light and perfume, of those
(03:46):
harmonies and joys, of those beauties and dreams. All is
dead has disappeared in the darkness of night, the world dead,
all the planets dead, the Sun extinguished, the solar system annihilated,
Time itself suspended, Time lapses into eternity, But eternity remains,
(04:13):
and time is borne again. Before the existence of the Earth,
throughout an eternity, suns and worlds existed peopled with beings
like ourselves, millions of years before the Earth was They
were the past of the universe has been as brilliant
as the present. The future will be as the past.
(04:36):
The present is of no importance. In examining the past
history of the Earth. We might go back to a
time when our planet shone in space, a veritable sun,
appearing as Jupiter and Saturn do now shrouded in a
dense atmosphere charged with warm vapors, and we might follow
(04:56):
all its transformations down to the period of man. We
have seen that when its heat was entirely dissipated, its
waters absorbed, the aqueous vapor of its atmosphere gone, and
this atmosphere itself more or less absorbed. Our planet must
have resented the appearance of those great lunar deserts seen
(05:19):
through the telescope, with certain differences due to the actions
of causes peculiar to the Earth, with its final geographical configurations,
its dried up shores and water courses, a planetary corpse,
a dead and frozen world. It still bears, however, within
its bosom an unexpended energy that of its motion of
(05:43):
translation about the Sun. An energy which transformed into heat
by the sudden destruction of its motion, would suffice to
melt it and to reduce it in part to a
state of vapor, thus inaugurating a new epic, but for
an instant only. For if this motion of translation were destroyed,
(06:05):
the Earth would fall into the Sun, and its independent
existence would come to an end. If suddenly arrested, it
would move in a straight line toward the Sun with
an increasing velocity, and reach the Sun in sixty five days,
where its motion gradually arrested, it would move in a
(06:25):
spiral to be swallowed up at last in the central luminary.
The entire history of terrestrial life is before our eyes.
It has its commencement, and its end, and its duration. However,
many of the centuries which compose it is preceded and
followed by Eternity. Is indeed but a single instant lost
(06:51):
in eternity. For a long time, after the Earth had
ceased to be the abode of life, the colossal worlds
of Jupiter and sad, passing more slowly from their solar
to their planetary stage, reigned in their turn among the planets,
with the splendor of a vitality incomparably superior to that
(07:12):
of our Earth. But they also waxed old and descended
into the night of the tomb ki. Had the Earth,
like Jupiter, for example, retained long enough, the elements of
life death would have come only with the extinction of
the Sun. But the length of the life of a
world is proportional to its size and its elements of vitality.
(07:38):
The solar heat is due to two principal causes, the
condensation of the original nebula and the fall of meteorites.
According to the best established calculations of thermodynamics, the former
has produced a quantity of heat eighteen million times greater
(07:58):
than that which the Sun radiates yearly. Supposing the original
nebula was cold, which there is no reason to believe
was the case, it is therefore certain that the solar
temperature produced by this condensation far exceeded the above. If
condensation continues, the radiation of heat may go on for
(08:19):
centuries without loss. The heat emitted every second is equal
to that which would result from the combustion of eleven
quadrillions six hundred thousand milliards of tons of coal burning
at once. The Earth intercepts only one five hundred millionth
(08:40):
part of the radiant heat, and this one five hundredth
millionth suffices to maintain all terrestrial life. Of sixty seven
millions of light and heat rays which the Sun radiates
into space, only one is received and yezed by the planets.
(09:02):
Well to maintain the source of heat, it is only
necessary that the rate of condensation should be such that
the Sun's diameter should decrease seventy seven meters a year,
or one kilometer in thirteen years. This contraction is so
gradual that it would be wholly imperceptible. Nine thousand, five
(09:25):
hundred years would be required to reduce the diameter by
one single second of arc. Even if the Sun be
actually in a gaseous state, its temperature so farten growing
less or even remaining stationary, would increase by the very
fact of contraction. For if, on the one hand, the
(09:46):
temperature of a gaseous body falls when it condenses, on
the other hand, the heat generated by contraction is more
than sufficient to prevent a fall in temperature, and the
amount of heat increases until a liquid state is reached.
The Sun seems to have reached this stage. The condensation
(10:07):
of the Sun, whose density is only one fourth that
of the Earth, may thus of itself maintain for centuries.
At least four ten million years. The light and heat
of this brilliant star. But we have just spoken of
a second source of heat, the fall of meteorites. One
(10:27):
hundred and forty six million meteorites fall upon the Earth yearly.
A vastly greater number fall into the Sun because of
its great retraction. If their mass equals about the one
hundredth part of the mass of the Earth, their fall
would suffice to maintain the temperature, not by their combustion,
(10:48):
for if the Sun itself was being consumed, it would
not have lasted more than six thousand years, but by
the sudden transformation of the energy of motion into heat,
the velocity of impact being six hundred and fifty thousand
meters per second. So great is the solar attraction. If
(11:08):
the Earth should fall into the Sun, it would make
good for ninety five years the actual loss of solar energy.
Venus would make good this loss for eighty four years,
Mercury for seven, Mars for thirteen, Jupiter four thirty two thousand,
two hundred and fifty four, Saturn for nine thousand, six
(11:31):
hundred and fifty two, Uranus four one thousand, six hundred
and ten, and Neptune for one thousand, eight hundred and
ninety years. That is to say, the fall of all
the planets into the Sun would produce heat enough to
maintain the present rate of expenditure for about forty six
thousand years. It is therefore certain that the fall of
(11:55):
meteors greatly lengthens the life of the Sun. One thirty
third birred millionth of the solar mass added each year
would compensate for the loss, and half of this would
be sufficient if we admit that condensation shares equally with
the fall of meteorites in the maintenance of solar heat,
(12:15):
centuries would have to pass before any acceleration of the
planet's velocities would be apparent. Owing to these two causes alone,
we may therefore admit a future for the Sun of
at least twenty million years, and this period cannot but
be increased by other unknown causes, to say nothing of
(12:35):
an encounter with a swarm of meteorites. The Sun therefore
was the last living member of the system, the last
animated by the warmth of life. But the Sun also
went out, after having so long poured upon his celestial
children his vivifying beams. The black spots upon his surface
(12:58):
increased in number and in exten his brilliant photosphere grew dull,
and his hitherto dazzling surface became congealed. An enormous red
ball took the place of the dazzling center of the
vanished worlds. For a long time, this enormous star maintained
(13:18):
a high surface temperature and a sort of phosphorus and atmosphere.
Its virgin soil, illumined by the light of the stars
and by the electric influences which formed a kind of atmosphere,
gave birth to a marvelous flora, to an unknown fauna,
to beings differing absolutely in organization from those who had
(13:38):
succeeded each other upon the worlds of its system. But
for the Sun also the end came, and the hour
sounded on the time piece of destiny, when the whole
Solar System was stricken from the book of life, and
one after another, the stars, each one of which is
a sun a solar system, share the same fate, and
(14:02):
yet the universe continue to exist as it does to
day PSI. The science of mathematics tells us the Solar
System does not appear to possess at present more than
the one four hundred and fifty fourth part of the
transformable energy which it had in the nebulous state. Although
(14:23):
this remainder constitutes a fund whose magnitude confounds our imagination,
it will also some day be exhausted. Later the transformation
will be complete for the entire universe, resulting in a
general equilibrium of temperature and pressure. Energy will not then
be susceptible of transformation. This does not mean annihilation, a
(14:48):
word without meaning, nor does it mean the absence of
motion properly speaking, since the same sum of energy will
always exist in the form of atomic motion, but the
absence of all sensible motion, of all differentiation, the absolute
uniformity of conditions, that is to say, absolute death. Such
(15:13):
is the present statement of the science of mathematics. Experiment
and observation prove and on the one hand, the quantity
of matter, and on the other hand, the quantity of
energy also remains constant, whatever the change in form or
in position. But they also show that the universe tends
(15:36):
to a state of equilibrium, a condition in which its
heat will be uniformly distributed. The heat of the Sun
and of all the stars seems to be due to
the transformation of their initial energy of motion to molecular impacts.
The heat thus generated is being constantly radiated into space,
(15:57):
and this radiation will go on until every sun is
cooled down to the temperature of space itself. If we
admit that the sciences of today mechanics, physics, and mathematics,
are trustworthy, and that the laws which now control the
operations of nature and of reason are permanent, this must
(16:19):
be the fate of the universe. Far from being eternal,
the earth on which we live has had a beginning
in eternity a hundred million years, a thousand million years,
or centuries are as a day. There is an eternity
behind us and before us, and all apparent duration is
(16:40):
but a point. A scientific investigation of nature and acquaintance
with its laws raises therefore the question already raised by
the theologians, whether Plato Zoroasta, Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas,
or some young seminarian who has just taken orders, what
(17:03):
was God doing before the creation of the universe and
what will he do after its end? Or under a
less anthromorphic form, Since God is unknowable, what was the
condition of the universe prior to the present order of things?
And what will it be after this order has passed away.
(17:25):
Note that the question is the same whether we admit
a personal God reasoning and acting toward a definite end,
or whether we deny the existence of any spiritual being
and admit only the existence of indestructible atoms and forces
representing an invariable sum of energy. In the first case,
(17:49):
why should God, an eternal and uncreated power, remain inactive?
Or having remained inactive, satisfied with the absolute infinity of
his nature, which nothing could augment, why did he change
this state and create matter and force? The theologian may
(18:10):
reply because it was his good pleasure, But philosophy is
not satisfied with this change in the divine purpose. In
the second case, since the origin of the present condition
of things only dates back a certain time, and since
there can be no effect without a cause, we have
the right to ask what was the condition of things
(18:34):
anterior to the formation of the present universe. Although energy
is indestructible, we certainly cannot deny the tendency toward its
universal dissipation, and this must lead to absolute repose and death,
for the conclusions of mathematics are irresistible. Nevertheless, we do
(18:56):
not concede this why, because the universe is not a
definite quantity or mega it is impossible to conceive of
a limit to the extension of matter. Limitless space, the
inexhaustible source of the transformation of potential energy into visible
(19:19):
motion and thence into heat and other forces confronts us,
and not a simple finished piece of mechanism running like
a clock and stopping forever. The future of the universe
is its past. If the universe were to have had
an end, this end would have been reached long ago,
(19:40):
and we should not be here to study this problem.
It is because our conceptions are finite that things have
a beginning and an end. We cannot conceive of an
absolutely endless series of transformations, either in the future or
in the past, nor that an equally endless series of
(20:02):
material combinations of planets, suns, sun systems, Milky ways, stellar
universes can succeed each other. Nevertheless, the heavens are there
to show us the infinite. Nor can we comprehend any
better the infinity of space or of time. Yet it
(20:24):
is impossible for us to conceive of a limit to either,
for our thought overleaps the limit and is impotent to
conceive of bounds, beyond which there is no space nor time.
One may travel for ever in any direction without reaching
a boundary, and as soon as any one affirms that
(20:47):
at a certain moment duration ceases, we refuse our ascent,
for we cannot confound time with the human measures of it.
These measures are reliantative and arbitrary. But time itself exists,
like space, independently of them. Suppress everything, space and time
(21:09):
would still remain, and that is to say, space, which
material things may occupy, and the possibility of the succession
of events. If this were not so, neither space nor
time would be really measurable, not even in thought, since
thought would not exist. But it is impossible for the
(21:33):
mind even to suppress either the one or the other.
Strictly speaking, it is neither space nor time that we
are speaking of, but infinity and eternity, relative to which
every measure, however great, is For a point, we do
not comprehend or conceive of infinite space or time, because
(21:56):
we are incapable of it. But this incapacit city does
not invalidate the existence of the absolute. In confessing that
we do not comprehend infinity, we feel it about us,
and that space as bounded by a wall or any barrier.
Whatever is in itself an absurd idea. And we are
(22:19):
equally incapable of denying the possibility of the existence, at
some instant of time, of a system of worlds whose
motions would measure time without creating it. Do our clocks
create time? No, they do, but measure it in the
presence of the Absolute. Our measures of both time and
(22:41):
space vanish, but the absolute remains. We live then, in
the infinite, without doubting it for an instant. The hand
which holds this pen is composed of eternal and indestructible elements,
and the atoms which constituted it existed in the solar nebula,
(23:02):
whence our planet came, and will exist forever. Your lungs,
breathe your brains, think with matter and forces which acted
millions of years ago and will act endlessly. And this
little globule which we inhabit, floats not at the center
of a limited universe, but in the depth of infinity,
(23:25):
as truly as does the most distant star which the
telescope can discover. The best definition of the universe ever
given to which there was nothing to add, is pascals
a sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere. It
is this infinity which assures the eternity of the universe. Stars, systems, myriads, milliards,
(23:52):
universes succeed each other without end in every direction. We
do not live near a center which does not exist.
And the Earth, like the farthest star, lies in the
fathomless infinite. No bounds to space, Fly in thought in
any direction with any velocity, for months, year, centuries, forever,
(24:16):
we shall meet with no limit, approach, no boundary. We
shall always remain in the vestibule of the infinite before us,
no bounds to time, Live in imagination through future ages,
add centuries to centuries, epic to epic. We shall never
(24:37):
attain the end. We shall always remain in the vestibule
of the eternity which opens before us. In our little
sphere of terrestrial observation, we see that through all the
transformations of matter and motion, the same quantity of each remains,
though under new forms. Living beings afford a perpetual illustration
(25:00):
of this. They are born, they grow by appropriating substances
from the world without, and when they die they break
up and restore to nature. The elements of which they
are composed, but by a law whose action never ceases,
other bodies are constituted from these same elements. Every star
(25:22):
may be likened to an organized being, even as regards
its internal heat. A body is alive so long as
respiration and the circulation of the blood makes it possible
for the various organs to perform their functions. When equilibrium
and repose are reached, death follows. But after death all
(25:42):
the substances of which the body was formed are wrought
into other beings. This solution is the prelude to recreation.
Analogy leads us to believe that the same is true
of the cosmos. Nothing can be destroyed. There is an
incommensurable power which we are obliged to recognize as limitless
(26:07):
in space and without beginning or end in time. And
this power is that which persists through all the changes
in those sensible appearances under which the universe presents itself
to us. For this reason, there will always be suns
and worlds not like ours, but still suns and worlds
(26:30):
succeeding each other through all eternity. And for us this
visible universe can only be changing appearance of the absolute
and eternal reality Alpha. It is in virtue of this
transcendent law. And long after the death of the Earth,
of the giant planets, and the Central Luminary, while our
(26:53):
old and darkened Sun was still speeding through boundless space
with its dead worlds on which terrestrial and planetary life
had once engaged in the futile struggle for daily existence,
another extinct Sun, issuing from the depths of infinity, collided
obliquely with it and brought it to rest. Then in
(27:13):
the vast night of space, from the shock of these
two mighty bodies was suddenly kindled a stupendous conflagration, and
an immense gaseous nebula was formed, which trembled for an
instant like a flaring flame, and then sped on into
regions unknown. Its temperature was several million degrees all which
(27:34):
here below had been earth, water, ere minerals, plants, atoms,
all which had constituted man, his flesh, his palpitating heart,
his flashing eye, his armed hand, his thinking brain, his
entrancing beauty, the victor and the vanquished, the executioner and
his victim, and those inferior souls still wearing the fetters
(27:57):
of matter all were changed in to fire, and so
were the worlds of Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and the rest.
It was the resurrection of visible nature, but those superior
souls which had acquired immortality continued to live forever in
the hierarchy of the invisible psychic universe. The conscious existence
(28:21):
of mankind had attained an ideal state. Mankind had passed
by transmigration through the worlds to a new life with God,
and freed from the burdens of matter, soared with an
endless progress in eternal light. The immense gaseous nebula, which
absorbed all former worlds thus transformed into vapor, began to
(28:43):
turn upon itself, and in the zones of condensation of
this primordial starmist new worlds were born as heretofore the
Earth was, And so another universe began, whose genesis some
future Moses and Laplaz would tell, a new creation, extra terrestrial, superhuman, inexhaustible,
(29:06):
resembling neither the Earth, nor Mars, nor Saturn nor the Sun.
And new humanities arose, new civilizations, new vanities, another Babylon,
another Thebes, and other Athens, another Rome and other Paris,
New palaces, temples, glories and loves, and all these things
(29:28):
possessed nothing of the Earth, whose very memory had passed
away like a shadow. And these universes passed away in
their turn, But infinite space remained peopled with worlds and
stars and souls and suns, and time went on forever,
(29:49):
for there can be neither end nor beginning. End of
Epilogue and end of Omega, the last days of the world.
Like Emille Flammarion,
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Cardiac Cowboys
The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.