Article November 13, 1920 Issue

Signs of the Times

with contributions from Kennedy Crone, Robert Keating Smith

["Matter"—The Christian Science Monitor, Boston, U.S.A., Oct. 7, 1920]

"In the last resort, matter has become a number, a measure, not a thing. The metaphysician, expelled from the physics of last century, has come back to his own." So does a writer in a recent issue of The Times, of London, conclude an able consideration of the steady breakdown in the accepted recognition of matter as a fixed fact which has taken place during the past twenty years. The closing years of the last century found the earth and the heaven triumphantly resolved into some eighty elements. Natural scientists admitted that possibly some more might be discovered but, to all intents and purposes, the great resolution was regarded as complete. So the question rested for a time, and then there began an effort to develop a theory of evolution amongst the elements themselves, to arrange them on an ascending scale, and by the time that Crookes had discovered his "radiant matter" the attempt to trace all the elements to some "primitive stuff" was well under way.

The next step was the collapse of the element. Elements under more drastic examination were found to appear in different forms, until, finally, it was shown quite conclusively that the constitution of all elements is hydrogen atoms, bound together with electrons. "And what are electrons, these new symbols of the physical conception of the material universe?" asks the writer in The Times. And then, immediately answering his own question, adds: "They are mathematical abstractions, their properties, inferences from mathematical reasoning. In the last resort, matter has become a number, a measure, not a thing."

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

Signs of the Times

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access