13 Journeys Through Space and Time: Christmas Lectures from the Royal Institution

First published in Great Britain in 2016

by Michael O’Mara Books Limited

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Copyright © Michael O’Mara Books Limited 2016

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ISBN: 978-1-78243-687-4 in hardback print format

ISBN: 978-1-78243-688-1 in ebook format

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Cover design: Anna Morrison

CONTENTS

Foreword by Tim Peake

Introduction

1 The Sun, the Moon and the Planets

Sir Robert Stawell Ball, 1881

2 The Story of a Meteorite

Sir James Dewar, 1885

3 A Voyage in Space

Herbert Hall Turner, 1913

4 Through Space and Time

Sir James Hopwood Jeans, 1933

5 Astronomy in Our Daily Life

Sir Harold Spencer Jones, 1944

6 The Exploration of the Universe

Sir Bernard Lovell, Sir Francis Graham-Smith, Sir Martin Ryle and Antony Hewish, 1965

7 Time Machines

Sir George Porter, 1969

8 The Planets

Carl Sagan, 1977

9 Origins

Malcolm Longair, 1990

10 The Cosmic Onion

Frank Close, 1993

11 Arrows of Time

Neil Johnson, 1999

12 Voyage in Space and Time

Monica Grady, 2003

13 How to Survive in Space

Kevin Fong, 2015

Epilogue

Picture Credits

Author Note

Index

FOREWORD

by ESA astronaut Tim Peake

The Christmas Lectures are something I always look forward to, so I was delighted to be asked to take part in Dr Kevin Fong’s 2015 Lectures about surviving in space. Being able to participate in the event while 400 km above Earth’s surface on board the International Space Station was a highlight of the mission for me.

Living and working on the ISS is an extraordinary privilege and a unique experience. Perhaps what struck me most about my time in space and arrival back on Earth is just how good our bodies are at adjusting to dramatically different environments. Six months of spaceflight is tough on the human body – forcing changes to our vestibular, cardiovascular and immune systems in addition to skin, muscle mass, bone density and eyesight. However, within just a few weeks of landing, the human body is able to fully recover, although bone density may take up to a year. These changes that take place provide a great opportunity for scientists and research teams to learn more about how the human body functions.

We have learned a vast amount about space travel since the first human was launched into orbit in 1961, but there is still so much to discover and we are learning more all the time. It’s vitally important that we excite the next generation of scientists and explorers about the discoveries that lie ahead of us; the Christmas Lectures are a fantastic way of doing this. An important part of the Principia mission was the successful educational outreach programme, reaching over 1 million schoolchildren through a variety of different activities. An investment in today’s young students is key if we are to solve the challenges of tomorrow.

This book is a wonderful testament to how far we’ve come in our understanding of space and the striking developments in technology that have allowed us to explore our universe. It’s also fascinating to see how the Royal Institution has consistently delivered cutting-edge science to the young Lectures audience over the years. Visiting the moon seemed a very distant dream to that audience less than a century ago and now not only have we landed there, but also we’re exploring the very real possibility of travelling to Mars, too. I hope this book inspires you to make your own journey into science.

INTRODUCTION

For many, the Christmas Lectures at the Royal Institution (RI) are just as much a part of the festive schedule as mince pies and turkey. This world-famous event has run almost every year since 1825, briefly stopping for a war-enforced hiatus between 1939 and 1942. Since 1966 the Lectures have been broadcast on television, reaching a wider audience of science enthusiasts around the world, and today they are available to watch online on the RI website. The brainchild of eminent Victorian scientist Michael Faraday – who was keen to educate and excite the young people of the United Kingdom about the wonders of science – the Lectures have always taken place in what is now known as the Faraday Lecture Theatre at 21 Albemarle Street, the home of the RI since its inception in 1799.

Young people from all over the UK still flock to the RI each year to hear about the latest developments in science, with spectacular demonstrations always playing a crucial role. Former RI director Sir Lawrence Bragg perhaps summed it up best when he wrote in a letter to his lecture assistant Bill Coates: ‘Never talk about science, show it to them.’ Each year the Lectures are packed full of amazing explosions, eruptions and intrigue.

The roll call of past Lecturers includes many famous names, from Sir David Attenborough to Richard Dawkins, Dame Nancy Rothwell to Heinz Wolff. But in these pages we focus on those Lectures relating to the topics of space and time. Astronomy is one of the oldest sciences, with successive generations gazing up at the night sky and trying to make sense of our place in the universe. But, as our understanding has evolved, we’ve begun to appreciate how the world of the very small – the atomic world – is just as crucial in the story of how we came to be here.

Each Lecture series featured in this book was some hours long when originally presented, taking place over a number of days around Christmas and New Year. The aim of this book isn’t to give a long and comprehensive account of each Lecture as it happened, but to highlight some of the fascinating themes that run through them and take the reader on a journey of astronomical discovery. We’ll see how our knowledge of the sun and the stars, the moon and the planets has evolved through the centuries, along with the technology with which the leading scientists of the age have showcased the wonders and complexities of our universe and beyond.

CHAPTER 1

THE SUN, THE MOON AND THE PLANETS

Sir Robert Stawell Ball

1881

In this fascinating series of Lectures we’re treated to an overview of our place in the solar system, a picture still very much in progress at this time. Recent discoveries of new planets, as well as moons orbiting those planets, will be brought to life with much fervour and enthusiasm. We’ll then leave the solar system to wonder at the stars beyond and attempt to picture just how far away they are from Earth and whether they have planets of their own. Ball’s ability to make the complicated simple through well-thought-out and poetic analogies is striking in its brilliance.

Our exploration of the solar system begins with the star at its heart. We know the sun is hot, but just how hot? Ball asks us to imagine ‘an experiment with . . . burning glass that most boys have often tried’: the age-old trick of setting fire to things with a magnifying glass. He tells us that scientists have experimented with a similar lens a yard wide. ‘Steel has thus been melted by the sunbeams . . . therefore the sun must have a higher temperature than that of molten steel; higher, indeed, than any temperature we can produce on Earth,’ he says. (Today we know that it actually has a surface temperature of around 5,500°C.)

Balls representing the sun, moon and Earth, to scale

Ball’s attention then turns to scale, as he places a football on the table of the theatre to represent the sun. How small would the Earth be in comparison? ‘A grain of small-sized shot will give the right size,’ he reveals. We know today that about one million Earths would fit inside the sun. Photographs of the sun thrown onto the big screen behind him show dark blotches – sunspots. We also see spectacular images of the sun eclipsed by the moon, allowing a glimpse of the faint solar atmosphere – the corona, which is only visible when the moon blocks out the harshness of the sun’s glare in this way. We see prominences, too; vast flame-like structures erupting from the edge of the sun. ‘One of them has been seen to rush up with a speed of 200,000 miles an hour – that is, with more than 200 times the pace of the swiftest of rifle bullets,’ Ball explains.

Ball giving a Lecture in the Royal Institution theatre

It is that handy blocker of sunlight – the moon – that is the centre of attention in Ball’s second Lecture. But it is fundamentally different from the sun – it doesn’t create any light of its own and only reflects sunlight. The amount of reflected light we see changes with its position around the Earth, creating the phases of the moon. This is aptly demonstrated when Ball places a ball in the path of an electric light and asks the audience on different sides of the theatre what they can see. He then asks us to imagine living on the moon and looking back at Earth. Our planet would appear to wax and wane, too, but with much greater lustre.

Image of a solar prominence

Ball’s demonstration of the phases of the moon

‘Think of a light which would be produced if you had thirteen moons . . . shining together. How splendid the night would then be! You would be able to read a book quite easily!’ This is because the Earth is bigger than the moon, a fact illustrated with a festive touch.

‘There is first to be a nice little round plum pudding, three inches in diameter . . . One boy of sound constitution could eat it all.’ A second pudding a foot across – four times the diameter – would represent the Earth. But, ‘if one schoolboy could eat the small plum pudding, how many boys would be required to dispose of the large one?’ asks Ball. The answer is not four, but sixty-four (or four times