Cosmology Old and New

Author(s): G R Jain
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 45

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SŪTRA 1 (Ajivakaya) F.R.S., says, “It is apparent that the star consists oniy of stripped atoms, that is to say, of atoms which have lost some of their outer rings of electrons. This must be due to the high temperature prevailing in the star, but it is not at all clear how stripped atoms with a large excess of positive electricity can be so closely packed:'" because as the charges are of the same sign, the tendency would be for infinite dispersion, instead of abnormal condensation. But such cases of abnormal condesation are not altogether unknown in Physics. The nucleus of atoms consists of a large excess of positive charges which are somehow packed within a very, very small compass."
The last words of the renowned physicist Dr. Saha mean nothing but that an innumerable number of atoms in a subtle state can occupr' one unit of space (pradeśa). This was the teaching of the Jaina Tirthankaras centuries before the advent of modern science.11
With regard to this kind of matter, Eddington wrote a few years ago, "One ton (=28 maunds) of such nuclear matter can be easily carried in a waistcoat pocket." But now comes the news that matter even more dense than this has been discovered. Ruby Ta'Bois, F.R.A.S.," says:
"In some of these bodies (small stars) the matter has become so densely packed that a cubic inch weighs a ton. The smallest known star discovered recently is so dense that a cubic inch of its material weighs 620 tons."
A piece of matter one inch long, one inch broad, one inch thick has a weight over 17.000 maunds!! Can you dream it? Can you believe it? Nevertheless it is a fact. It is the result of subtlety and accommodating power of the molecules (सूक्ष्मपरिणामSTEMTE-TTT) that innumerable atoms of matter can occupy one prudesu. Modern sceptic thinks and wonders whether the phenomenon of packing of stripped atoms was known to ancients. However the fact is there. The definition of pradesa is full of significance. We reproduce it once more:
Pradeśa is the unit of space occupied by one indivisible atom of matter but in which innumerable atoms of matter may exist in a subtle state.” 1
The recent discovery of quasars and pulsars in the last decade
35. Presidential address delivered before the Science Congress, Bombay in 1926.
36. See Foot-note No. 6 of the Prologue. 37. See Arm Chair Science, London, July 1937.