Radio-activity and the Age of the Sun

Abstract

IN the Appendix E of Thomson and Tait's “Natural Philosophy,” Lord Kelvin has computed the energy lost in the concentration of the sun from a condition of infinite dispersion, and argues thence that it seems “on the whole probable that the sun has not illuminated the earth for 100,000,000 years, and almost certain that he has not done so for 500,000,000 years. As for the future, we may say, with equal certainty, that inhabitants of the earth cannot continue to enjoy the light and heat essential to their life for many million years longer, unless sources now unknown to us are prepared in the great storehouse of creation.”