In every detail the London Planetarium of 2,000 A.D. was a masterpiece. It stood on the site formerly occupied by the old Greenwich Observatory and covered some five square miles. State-financed, it was intended to bring home to an increasingly scientific public the true scale-details of the Universe and more immediate Solar System. In its colossal halls there was reproduced an exact model of the planets, including Earth, together with the sun and, as far as could be calculated, all the known constellations. In fact the place was a scientific wonderland.
It had, however, one omission—and it worried the Planetarium Curator, a stickler for accuracy, quite a deal. He did not like the “sun” model.
“In fact,” he declared to the Board of Planetarium directors, “it looks more like a firework than a genuine reproduction of the Sun.”
“After all, one can hardly reproduce the sun,” one of the scientists remarked dryly. “Not even on a small scale. In that particular instance we have to make do with a brilliantly lighted globe.”
“And spoil the entire effect!” the Curator snorted. “I tell you, gentlemen, it is ridiculous! Here we have a perfect reproduction of the Expanding Universe, even to the extent of the model galaxies moving outwards from the original explosion, and what do we have for a sun? A glorified electric light bulb!”
The scientists said nothing. The Curator was given to occasional ravings over some trifling scientific point, so they let him have his head.
“Who says we can’t reproduce a sun?” he demanded at length. “I think we can! The sun is pure atomic force in the midst of inconceivably violent energy change, which produces a temperature of billions of degrees. We of this age have mastered atomic force—which is nothing more than a reproduction of solar conditions, so there is no reason why we cannot make a model sun and feed it by atomic power.”
“I think you are letting realism run away with caution, Curator,” one of the astronomers remarked. “I don’t have to tell you, do I, that the sun emits terrific radiation, especially in the seventh octave waves, which are masked by our atmosphere? If you reproduce an exact sun you’ll blind and burn anybody within its radius.”
“I have considered that aspect,” the Curator responded. “It will be created inside a globe, that globe being transparent to light and heat. It will be a globe of radiation-proof glass, such as is used in space machines to protect the occupants from cosmic radiation. Thuswise its dangerous emanations will be sealed in, but its heat and light will not. We shall have a perfect solar reproduction on a small scale and the ‘sun’ will be kept in existence by being fed with copper, that being the best metal for disintegrative processes.”
“And supported, as now, by the inherent magnetism of the bodies surrounding it?” another scientist questioned.
“Certainly. Since our model Universe is scale balanced every part holds every other part. The degravitators in the floor of the Planetarium prevent Earth’s natural mass acting on the model worlds. Our Planetarium is the marvel of the Age, gentlemen, but we want it complete. Already we have been held to ridicule by some critics because of our two penny-ha’penny sun. We must rectify it.”
“Providing there is no danger to spectators I am quite willing,” one of the physicists commented. “But the difficulty will be to make sure that this proposed sun is not dangerous. We cannot rely on instruments—human life itself must be tested within range of the miniature sun.”
“I have two men who will not only create this sun but will also make the necessary test of its harmlessness,” the Curator said, and his statement brought a stir to the assembly.
“I am referring to Newton Dane and Scott Armstrong,” the Curator explained. “Those two young men have made immense contributions to science in the last five years with their researches into atomics. I broached the matter of an artificial sun to them a few days ago, and they are quite convinced they can create one. All they require is the finance and complete run of the physical laboratory until the job is done.”
“And in the event of failure?” a chemist asked gloomily. “How do we explain the expenditure of some thousands of pounds on something which can be done without?”
“They will not fail.” The Curator was supremely confident. “I have seen the plans they have drawn up. To create a sun they intend to do exactly as the sun does—annihilate matter. When matter is annihilated energy is produced in its most furious form, and that is solar power. I can give you the details and the figures if you wish….
The members of the Board nodded, and for the next hour the master-minds brooded over the equations and designs before them. Finally they consulted with each other, and the Curator smiled happily as he realised his efforts had been successful. The money would be forth-coming and the laboratory would be turned over to the two physicists until the task was complete.
The two young scientists themselves took the commission with apparent enthusiasm. In fact Newton Dane, of the red hair and high forehead really was delighted—but not so Scott Armstrong. Of the two men he was the cleverer, in so far that he could usually see the outcome of an experiment before it took place. He had the analytical brilliance, whereas Dane was a mathematician with all the logic the science demanded.
“I don’t understand what you’re so reluctant about, man! Think of the fame we’ll achieve! The men who made a sun!”
Newton Dane was striding up and down the clear space of the physical laboratory as he talked, waving his extinguished pipe in his clenched hand, his red hair standing on end from incessant exposure to electric static. Scott Armstrong was seated at the bench, examining the sheets of equations.
“One day, maybe, we’ll kindle a sun on a real-sized scale,” Dane added, his blue eyes bright. “If not us, then scientists who will come after us. There will come a time when our present sun will no longer be of any use to the System. He’ll be dead, his fires burned out. From our small experiment of to-day may grow a scientific system of sun-kindling which can restore life to a dying Solar System.”
“Perhaps,” Scott Armstrong admitted, musing. He was a hawk-faced man of thirty, black-haired and grey-eyed. He gave the impression of always gazing into distances as though he were shutting out the present.
“Look,” Dane faced him directly. “What the devil’s the matter? If you don’t want to undertake this commission for heaven’s sake say so. I’ll have to get somebody else to help me—unfortunately. You and I work so well together.”
“Has it occurred to you,” Armstrong asked, “that to create solar conditions we shall have to completely annihilate matter? Completely! Note that. It has never been done before.”
“That’s ridiculous, man. We do it every day in the atomic energy power houses.”
“I disagree. We extract the maximum amount of energy from a given piece of matter, but there is always something left over. A byproduct. Half our trade is based on atomic byproducts to-day. The law of the universe is: If you annihilate matter you get energy; if you annihilate energy you get matter. You cannot ever destroy anything. Because if you do the whole balance and entropy of the Universe is undone.”
“Well?” Dane’s brows were knitted. He was having a struggle to follow the reasoning.
“The sun,” Armstrong continued, “completely annihilates matter and converts it into energy. In the doing thereof it emits many terrific energy radiations which, thank heaven, do touch us because of our atmosphere shield. The point I am making is this: The sun destroys matter, or more technically converts it into free energy which can escape unhindered into space. But if we totally destroy matter and bottle up the energy inside a globe through which it cannot escape, what is going to happen? It must escape if it is not to explode. Just as a volcano must erupt when its inner pressure becomes too extreme. All I can see for it is an unthinkably violent explosion which will blow the apparatus, and the laboratory, clean off the map!”
Dane was silent, his eyes fixed on the equations.
“Mathematics do not predict any untoward consequences,” he said.
“Mathematics are not competent to deal with the situation.” Armstrong lighted a cigarette and reflected. “We’re dealing with something that hasn’t been attempted before because no man has ever tried to utterly annihilate matter and imprison the released energy in a globe. Anything can happen. There is also another aspect. If—as we must—we reproduce exact solar conditions, we shall need to pass cosmic radiation through our artificially-created sun. The real sun is absorbing them all the time, and it is possible their energy is also used by the sun and converted into other radiations. We are attempting an experiment which strikes at the root of elemental Nature and, quite frankly, I’m frightened of it!”
“A scientist can’t afford to be frightened,” Dane snapped.
“If we could permit of some escape for the energy which will be created I’d be happy,” Armstrong said. “But that we cannot do if we are to reproduce a sun. Besides, such energies escaping would overcome anybody within range.”
“No experiment was ever made that hasn’t an element of risk,” Dane argued. “We know exactly what we propose doing. We shall bring up the temperature of our furnace to three thousand billion degrees, at which temperature the copper will be freely converted into energy, stripped of its electrons. Across that energy we shall drive cosmic radiation of a wave-length of one thirty-second of a million millionth of a centimetre. Thuswise we have the exact conditions reigning on the surface of the sun.”
“And no escape for the energy produced by conversion!” Armstrong clung doggedly to his point.
“All right, so we’ve no escape for it. Mathematics show that can’t cause disaster, and I’ll trust figures to the day I die.”
Armstrong smiled and got up from the bench. He clapped Dane on the shoulder.
“Okay, old man, don’t get excited. I know you always get het up when a theory is challenged. I’m only looking ahead—as usual. Perhaps a bit too far. Anyway, we’ll risk it and see what happens.”
Dane relaxed and grinned. “Good man. I knew you’d see it my way….”
For the next three weeks the apparatus necessary to the construction of the artificial sun was erected in the specially cleared laboratory, under the direction of the two young scientists. Armstrong had done his best to push his misgivings into the background, and Dane never had any at all—so the work proceeded, with occasional blessings from the Planetarium Board of Directors when they came to view the proceedings.
At the end of a month the equipment was complete. The most important pieces were the electric furnace, using atomic power for the generation of super-heat; and the cosmic-ray machine. It resembled a high-powered tel. . .
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