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Show f s The ZERO That Has NO HEAT ! "" ABSOLUTE zero, the point at which there is no heat whatever, has been fixed by scientists at 273 degrees below zero Centigrade, or about 530 degrees below zoro Fahrenheit. i This amazing slate of coldness has been produced by Professor Kamerllng Onnes at his laboratory in the University of Leyden, Holland. One of the interesting results of this experiment has been to prove that life is not extinguished by this degree of cold. The germ theory as advanced by Professor Svanto Arrhenius and other scientists i&, therefore, proved tenable. According to this theory, life has been carried from star to star and from planet to planet through space, in the form of microscopic germs driven by the power of light. The objection immedl-ately immedl-ately offered to this theory was that the absolute zero of space would be fatal to the germs. This objection Ib now disposed of. Heat is the energy of molecular motion, and at absolute ab-solute zoro tho molecules are devoid of all motion. In the cold-producing plant at Leyden gases of successively suc-cessively lower liquefying points are attacked, one arter the other, the evaporation of each being used to sorb heat from the next In the scries. This is called at Leyden a "cascade," and Includes five "cycles," the gases used, in their order, being methyl chlorld, ethylene, oxygen, hydrogen and helium, with the production pro-duction successively of temperatures of 00. 160, 210, 259 and 273 degrees below zero Centigrade. Scientists of all countries may study at Leyden these different phenomena: (1) The electric conductibility of metals at low temperatures. (2) The momentary suspension of life in certain seeds. P. Becquerel has tried to see whether, at very low temperatures, the life of seeds could be suspended for a definite period and resumed again at the observer's observ-er's pleasure. The law of the continuity of vital phenomena phe-nomena so often Invoked by physiologists would seem to be at fault. According to it, life Is a series of uninterrupted un-interrupted vital phenomena which in no case can undergo un-dergo the slightest suspension without the intervention of death. The experiments of Becquerel do not square with this law. As Armand (Jautier says, seeds, or cvon the lower animals, may often be considered as machines at rest but ready to run clocks taken to pieces that require re-quire only to be put together again. Such experiments obviate one of the objections made to the germ theory according to which the germs of life 1111 all space. These serins, it is said, would be exposed 'during their course to the intense cold of interstellar space which they could not withBtanfl. Now it has been proved that a temperature o 235'Rtts degree , does not abolish the germinative fao-Si; uliy' (3) The specific heats of solids at low tempera-Sloes-tures. Investigations undertaken by Nernst and his P31"' pupils show that tho specific heats diminish rapidly, t when the temperature falls. Professor D'Arsonval, the famous French scientist, .f8" in commenting on the Leyden achievements, points out f p that the constitution of matter and the nature of clec: jaipoi tricity may be discovered by studying them in the neighborhood of absolute zero. The discoveries of; J,1;; Curie and othors have shown us that tho atom is like - a solar system in miniature. ir The atom is formed by the inconceivably rapid rota-! tion of electric corpuscles, which contain, despite their . p0j minuteness, energies of tremendous violence. -sawro Thus in an atom of hydrogen, which is thousands oI.J:r times heavier than tho billion billionth part of a milll- gramme, there are a thousand of these tiny bodies of called "electrons" charged with negative electricity dsaSi gravitating round a kernel charged with positive clec- , tricity. Professor Lodge has said that there is enough energy in a grain of hydrogen to raise the British nuvywia to the top of the Himalaya Mountaius. |