The conclusion which our minds are forced to draw from the facts presented in this chapter is not doubtful, nor is it difficult to state. Matter is not now being brought into existence by any means that we call "natural." _And yet the facts of radioactivity very positively forbid the past eternity of matter_. Hence, the conclusion is syllogistic: matter must have originated at some time in the past by methods or means which are equivalent to a real Creation. Thus far, at least, the record of Genesis is confirmed: "In the beginning God created." II THE ORIGIN OF ENERGY I What has been regarded by many as the greatest scientific triumph of modern times was worked out about the middle of the last century by James Prescott Joule and others, in determining that a certain amount of mechanical energy is exactly equivalent to a definite amount of heat. With this mechanical equivalent of heat all the various other forms of energy have also been correlated; until now we have the general law of the Conservation of Energy, which says that energy can be neither manufactured nor destroyed, but merely transformed and directed. And this magnificent law, like that of the conservation of matter, is strong evidence that there must have been a real Creation at some time in the long ago, different not merely in degree but in kind from anything known to modern science. Joule worked out the mechanical equivalent of heat by means of his now famous experiment of churning water. He reasoned that if the heat produced by friction, etc., is really energy in another form, then the same amount of heat must always be generated by the expenditure of a given amount of motion or mechanical work. And this must be true, no matter whether this work is expended in overcoming the friction between wood on wood, iron on iron, or in any other conceivable way. Accordingly, he devised an experiment in which paddle wheels were made to rotate in a vessel of water by means of falling weights somewhat like the weights of a clock. The amount of work represented by the falling of the weights was easily calculated, and so was the amount of rise in temperature of the water caused by the friction of the water with the rotating paddle wheels. In various other ways he measured the amount of heat generated by a measured amount of work; and as the result of all his experiments (with very slight corrections made since by means of more exact apparatus), we now know that 778 foot pounds of work produce heat enough to raise one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit; or stated in the metric system, 427 kilogram meters of work will produce a calorie of heat.