Since I have not been able to give here the details of the calculation,
I should make it plain that the curve in Fig. 7 is traced by pure
theory or terrestrial experiment except for the one constant determined
by making it pass through Capella. We can imagine physicists working
on a cloud-bound planet such as Jupiter who have never seen the stars.
They should be able to deduce by the method explained on p. 25 that
if there is a universe existing beyond the clouds it is likely to
aggregate primarily into masses of the order a thousand quadrillion
tons. They could then predict that these aggregations will be globes
pouring out light and heat and that their brightness will depend on
the mass in the way given by the curve in Fig. 7. All the information
that we have used for the calculations would be accessible to them
beneath the clouds, except that we have stolen one advantage over
them in utilizing the bright component of Capella. Even without this
forbidden peep, present-day physical theory would enable them to assign
a brightness to the invisible stellar host which would not be absurdly
wrong. Unless they were wiser than us they would probably ascribe to
all the stars a brilliance about ten times too great[7]--not a bad
error for a first attempt at so transcendent a problem. We hope to
clear up the discrepant factor 10 with further knowledge of atomic
processes; meanwhile we shelve it by fixing the doubtful constant by
astronomical observation.
_Dense Stars_
The agreement of the observational points with the curve is remarkably
close, considering the rough nature of the observational measurements;
and it seems to afford a rather strong confirmation of the theory. But
there is one awful confession to make--_we have compared the theory
with the wrong stars_. At least when the comparison was first made
at the beginning of 1924 no one entertained any doubt that they were
the wrong stars.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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