STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE—HEAPS 167 
solar system, spiral nebulae. The farther end of the macroscopic 
region may be given a special subtitle, the astronomical region. 
We have arranged here various matter elements in a certain spatial 
relationship. The time concept is involved because this is an arrange- 
ment which may be correct only at one instant of time. It is possible 
that the position of some of these entities on the line is constantly 
changing. When an electron gets into rapid motion its mass is 
changed a little and it shortens one of its dimensions. It thus shifts its 
position on the line slightly to the left whenever it has a high velocity. 
The solar system may be slowly running down so that the planets grad- 
ually approach the sun. If this is the case the position of the solar 
system on the line is slowly shifting to the left. 
Certain segments of this line have occupied the attention of various 
specialists. Astronomers deal with everything listed to the right of 
earth. Thousands of specialists work on the section from earth to 
atom. Physicists in recent years have concentrated intensively on the 
segment from atom to zero. The discovery of the positron, the neutron, 
and the mesotron within the last decade, has opened up a most fruitful 
field of research in physics. In this region, forever beyond the reach 
of the human eye, is probably contained most of the mystery of the 
entire universe. As K. K. Darrow has expressed it, “This field is 
unique in modern physics for the minuteness of the phenomena, the 
delicacy of the observations, the adventurous excursions of the 
observers, the subtlety of the analysis, and the grandeur of the 
inferences.” 
It is not too much to say that if some American physicist could only 
make the right kind of discovery in this domain our entire oil and coal 
industries would become more or less obsolete and World War II 
would be won in a matter of days. It should also be said that such a 
discovery is possible but not probable. 
Returning now to our linear lay-out for the universe we may note 
that everything to the right of proton is constructed out of the mate- 
rial included in the range from proton to zero. All matter in the uni- 
verse exists in the form of bunches or aggregates of smaller parts. 
Protons, neutrons, electrons bunch to form atoms; atoms group into 
molecules; molecules group into stones and mountains; stones and 
mountains form the earth. In the astronomical field, planets group 
about the sun to form the solar system—a solar system which in the 
astronomical field is remarkably like the atom in the microscopic field. 
The important unit of structure in the astronomical field is a sun. 
Practically all the stars which we can see on a clear night are distant 
suns, much like our own, although it is thought that only an extremely 
small fraction of these suns have planets around them like our own. 
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