Astronomy

If we contemplate for a few moments the portion of the physical world before us we conclude that it is made up of matter and space. As the moments pass by, one event following another leads us to the conception of another factor time. It is obvious that motion involves space and time; that is, the displacement from one portion in space to another requires a certain amount of time and the whole process is termed motion. For a period in scientific development it was thought that all physical phenomena might be explained eventually in terms of matter, space and time. That is, there was hope for a single law which would explain all the physical things, events, and relationships in terms of movements of matter. But as scientific data accumulated, such a simplification became hopeless. In other words, a purely materialistic view could not account for the force of gravitation, for example.

Let us give some consideration to the apparently uninteresting fundamental which we term matter. At least it is important and is certainly the very foundation of the universe. Without it we would have only space and time which are not material. In fact, we would not have them for we would not exist. The physical universe as we know it would reduce to nothingness.

All matter has weight, that is, a certain degree of heaviness.

In our infancy we become familiar with weight so that by the time we reach an age of reason we accept this as a fundamental of all things. Owing to the commonplaceness of the phenomenon of weight, only an unsually observing and thoughtful person would even suspect that there might be a reason for it. Certainly in the centuries when there were relatively few accurate and correlated data of the physical world, we could not expect mankind to see much in common among a number of phenomena such as the weight of the body, the tides, a swinging pendulum, running water, the falling of an apple, the rotundity of the earth, the motion of the moon, the movements of planets and comets. But all these and many more movements of matter are bound together by law and a common property.

The Earth’s Attraction

As we see a “strong man” lifting a heavy weight we do not visualize a pulling contest between him and the Earth. Nevertheless, that is just what takes place. As we climb a mountain we are in a competition with the Earth. Our muscles ache under the strain of overcoming the Earth’s pull upon us. We dislodge rocks and they go rolling downward. We see nothing remarkable in that because they always roll downward. We would be surprised, indeed, it would be marvelous, if they rolled upward. But, after all, it is just as wonderful that they roll downward as upward. The difference is that in the one case it is natural; in the other it is unnatural. This exemplifies the confidence we have in the orderliness of Nature. In fact, the very basis of scientific inquiry and argument is the assumption that there is a reason for any given event of the physical world and that it is always the same for the same fundamental event. In other words, the assumption is that Nature is orderly and is always so; that is, that there are no exceptions, no miracles. We cannot prove that yonder object is heavy until we lift it. We cannot prove that the Sun will rise tomorrow, but we are confident enough for all practical purposes because of our faith in the orderliness of Nature.

Perhaps the foregoing has served the purpose of emphasizing how we take for granted what in our experience has always been. Are most persons today any less indifferent toward what is natural or commonplace than those of any earlier time even in the primitive eras of little knowledge of the physical world? Of course, many persons now have had the advantage of some study of physics at least. But if we will visualize earlier centuries when science had not progressed far or even with much certainty, we can, perhaps, appreciate more fully the men who first began to inquire why things sought a lower level.