(2 of 2)
The Universe, to Sir James Hopwood Jeans, is a machine that is spending itself, expanding like a soap bubble, using up its energy until eventually it will run itself out. Fundamental principle of the Jeans theory is a basic law of physics embodied in the second law of thermodynamics: energy can flow only from a more intense state of availability to a less intense state. Professor Richard Chase Tolman of the California Institute of Technology applied Professor Albert Einstein's relativity theory to thermodynamics, worked out a mathematical model of the universe in which energy does not flow continually downward, but expands and contracts in cycles, never reaching a state of equilibrium. Therefore he concluded that though the universe may be expanding in the neighborhood of the earthstars moving outward in space, radio-active elements breaking down into less energetic forms-this process may be reversed in remoter regions, stars may be moving back toward the centre of the universe, even radiation may be turned upside down.
RAC In three-dimensional geometry the ratio of an arc to its chord is one. (i. e., the arc can become so small as to coincide with its chord.) Professor Edward Kasner of Columbia University projected a four-dimensional geometry, found the ratio could be less than one. More important, he found that the ratio does not diminish steadily as the length of the arc is diminished, but in sudden jumps-from 1 to 0.94 to 0.86 to 0.80. . . . The changes in subatomic energy occur in lumps, and these changes he found to correspond to the diminishing jumps of Ratio of Arc to Chord. He hoped his theory might link relativity with the Quantum Theory, bring the energy processes of radiation under the relativist's geometrical picture of the universe.