518 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1962 



monplace that we take them for granted, not realizing tliat we live in 

 the midst of mysteries, or that we ourselves are one of the greatest 

 mysteries in nature. 



From this paper the reader must not expect to get any factual infor- 

 mation beyond what is well known. The discussions that follow are 

 simply ratiocinations about things we do not know, and theories that 

 attempt to exj^lain them. 



IN THE BEGINNING 



We begin with the most abstruse of all mysteries, the question of 

 how did the universe come into existence. In the book of Genesis we 

 are definitely told that on the first day, whenever that was, the heavens 

 and the earth were created and that, on the third day following, the 

 sun and stars were made. No astronomer can accept this statement. 

 To say the least, the writer got his dates badly mixed, since it is cer- 

 tain that the earth did not float around in space for 4 days before mak- 

 ing connections with the sun. Moreover, "creation," as we must now 

 visualize it, did not begin with the formation of stars and planets all 

 ready-made, but with the elemental particles of matter. Since atoms 

 are no longer indivisible units, the first forms of matter should have 

 been protons, neutrons, and electrons. 



There are only two possible ways to account for the existence of the 

 universe; either matter was created, or it has always existed. The 

 technique of creation, making something out of nothing, no one has 

 even attempted to explain, and the process is quite impossible for us to 

 understand. On the other hand, that anything can exist without a 

 beginning is something we cannot visualize ; "always" is a stretch of 

 time our finite minds cannot grasp. Yet we can hardly conceive of 

 time having had a beginning — we rather confidently speak of eternity 

 in the opposite direction — nor can we think of space as having limits. 

 Time can be limited only by more time, and space by more space. 

 However, there is the theory of some astronomers that radiation from 

 the sun and stars is produced by the annihilation of atoms. In this 

 case, Jeans (1921) points out, the present matter of the universe could 

 not always have been here, and so he postulates that annihilation must 

 be compensated by creation, but he is not explicit as to how the latter 

 takes place. Material existence has to be taken as a fact, but the ques- 

 tion of origins will forever remain a double mystery. As said by 

 Jeans, there is "a growing conviction that the ultimate realities of the 

 universe are at present quite beyond the reach of science, and may be — 

 and probably are — forever beyond the comprehension of the human 

 mind." It is a relief to feel that there are things so far beyond us 

 that we need not even try to understand them. 



Material existence has to be accepted as a fact, and we can endure 

 perpetual ignorance concerning the origin or beginning of the uni- 



