Abstract
THE idea of the ultimate final cessation of all physical change and life in the universe1 has been contemplated by many physicists with some dissatisfaction, and with the desire if possible to find some explanation or physical means by which so apparently purposeless an end is averted, and of avoiding the necessity for assuming in past time a violation of; physical principles at present recognised to exist.2 Several attempts have been made to surmount the difficulty,3 but apparently with no gene rally satisfactory result. Having given much time to physical problems having a relation more or less to this question, and having always kept the question itself in view, I should like to submit the following conclusion to. the readers of NATURE as an attempt to solve the difficulty, though what I have to bring forward is probably not entirely new, as considerations partially tending towards, the same final result have already been published by Mr. James Croll, Phil. Mag., May, 1868, “On Geological Time;”4 and Mr. Johnstone Stoney, “On the Physical Constitution of the Sun and Stars,” Proc. of the Royal Society, 1868–69. The groundwork of what I have to suggest may be described in a few words.5
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References
Quarterly Journal of Science, July, 1877.
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PRESTON, S. On the Possibility of Explaining the Continuance of Life in the Universe Consistent with the Tendency to Temperature-Equilibrium . Nature 19, 460–462 (1879). https://doi.org/10.1038/019460f0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/019460f0