The Dying Sun by Sir James Jeans

The Dying Sun

                                                                                                          James Jeans

1) Write about the universe as described by James Jeans in your own words.
A:- Sir James Hopwood Jeans was an English physicist and mathematician. He proposed for the first time that 'matter is continuously created throughout the universe'. He applied mathematics to problems in thermodynamics and wrote on various features  of radiation. Some of his best books are; "The Universe Around Us and Through Space and Time", "The Dynamic Theory of Gases”, “Theoretical Mechanics" and others. In the lesson, 'The Dying Sun', James Jeans analyses the geographical details of heavenly bodies of the universe and the possibility of life in them.
              With a comparison between the geographical area of the star and earth, James Jeans says that most of the stars are so large than the earth that thousands of earths can be packed inside each star. There are some immense stars, large enough to contain even millions of earths in each star and leave space in it. He adds that there are innumerous stars in the universe, like the total number of grains of sand on all the sea-shores of the world.
             Secondly, James Jeans highlights how big, immense our universe is. He says that there is immense distance between the stars and it is very rare event that one star come near to another. With an excellent comparison between a star and a ship on an empty ocean, he says that an average star is well over a million miles away from its nearest star.
              James Jeans systematically describes how the solar system came into existence, and about the results of it. In a detailed manner, he explains how the planets became cooler. He explains about the availability of life only on earth. He further explains about the gradual growth process of living organisms on earth, and about the establishment of human society on earth, their emotions, religious beliefs.
            James opines that we all find the universe frightening because of its immense distances between each heavenly body, because of the stretches of time which is so great that we cannot even imagine, because of our earth's extreme loneliness in the midst of this immense universe. Moreover to all these, we find the universe frightening as we are unable to find any other heavenly body like the earth, in which life exist in it. That is why, perhaps, he opines that "life does not seem to have any part in the plan of the universe (except on earth)".
             He opines that most of the heavenly bodies are extremely hot and most of them are extremely cold, which is impossible to live in them. He remarks that we have a very narrow space in between the two belts of extreme hot and extreme cold. Life can hardly exist in this narrow space. James concludes his views on universe that it is unsure whether suitable physical conditions are enough in this narrow space to produce life.

Meanings:-                                                                                                                                                                 

Physicist             = a scientist trained in Physics
Matter                = any substance e.g. Soil
Thermodynamics= the branch of Physics concerned with the conversion of different forms of energy.
Radiation            = the sending of heat, light, energy etc.
Heavenly bodies = the bodies like the sun, moon, stars, planets etc.
Innumerous       = countless
Immense           = huge; large; big
Gradual(ly)         = slow(ly)
Stretch               = expansion


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