122 UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI BULLETIN 



thing eventually reaches the same temperature, no matter how 

 high that temperature may be, all mechanical processes and 

 all life processes must cease, and the whole universe will con- 

 sist of dead matter. To this possible and very formidable 

 condition the Germans have given the name "Warmetod," or 

 heat-death. 



The astronomer Arrhenius has suggested that there may 

 be a way out of this terrible difficulty, for he thinks there is 

 some reason for believing that, though in ordinary cases heat 

 passes only from hot to colder bodies, in the nebulae the 

 process is just reversed, and that there we have a counter 

 process going on which may be sufficient to fully offset the 

 degradation of the energy in other parts of the universe. 



