Abstract
IN NATURE of May 30, M. Leontovski1 shows that ” To a most sensitive eye, the background of the galaxies would appear as a dark red.” Since the irresolvable background consists of nebulæ receding with nearly the speed of light, the age of these nebulæ, as observed, reckoned in our own time-scale, must be approximately one half the present age of our own surroundings; that is, if t is the conventional value of the age of the universe, ½t is the age of the observed background2. Combining these results, we see that the background realizes the poet's dream of ” A rose-red city, half as old as time.”3
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References
NATURE, 137, 904 (1936).
Mon. Not. Roy. Ast. Soc., 93, 674 (1935); ” Relativity, Gravitation and World-Structure” (1935), P. 108 (diagram).
J. W. Burgon, ” Petra” Newdigate Prize Poem, 1845.
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MILNE, E. The Background of the Galaxies. Nature 138, 38 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/138038b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/138038b0
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