Simon Newcomb calls the "structure and duration of the universe" the "most far-reaching" problem. If you had to explain to someone *why* understanding the universe's ultimate fate and design is considered more significant than other astronomical discoveries, what core ideas would you emphasize from this excerpt?

From the book

ivilisation. Before our time the problem could be considered only from the imaginative or the speculative point of view. Although we can to-day attack it to a limited extent by scientific methods, it must be admitted that we have scarcely taken more than the first step toward the actual solution.... What is the duration of the universe in time? Is it fitted to last for ever in its present form, or does it contain within itself the seeds of dissolution? Must it, in the course of time, in we know not how many millions of ages, be transformed into something very different from what it now is?…

have maintained this, but their argument implies that we know a great deal more about the universe than we actually do. The scientific man does not know whether the universe is finite or infinite, temporal or eternal; and he declines to speculate where there are no facts to guide him. He knows only that the great gaseous nebulae promise myriads of worlds in the future, and he concedes the possibility that new nebulae may be forming in the ether of space. The last, and not the least interesting, subject we have to notice is the birth of a "new star." This is an event which astronomers now…

. It is to this wonderful instrument that we owe our knowledge of the composition of the sun and stars, as we shall see. "That the spectroscope will detect the millionth of a milligram of matter, and on that account has discovered new elements, commands our admiration; but when we find in addition that it will detect the nature of forms of matter trillions of miles away, and moreover, that it will measure the velocities with which these forms of matter are moving with an absurdly small per cent. of possible error, we can easily acquiesce in the statement that it is the greatest instrument…

← The Outline of Science by John Arthur Thomson Part I Part II → 168534 The Outline of Science — Part I John Arthur Thomson THE ROMANCE OF THE HEAVENS THE SCALE OF THE UNIVERSE--THE SOLAR SYSTEM Sec. 1 The story of the triumphs of modern science naturally opens with Astronomy. The picture of the Universe which the astronomer offers to us is imperfect; the lines he traces are often faint and uncertain. There are many problems which have been solved, there are just as many about which there is doubt, and notwithstanding our great increase in knowledge, there remain just as many which are…

ustration: _Photo: Harvard College Observatory._ FIG. 2.--THE MILKY WAY Note the cloud-like effect.] [Illustration: FIG. 3--THE MOON ENTERING THE SHADOW CAST BY THE EARTH The diagram shows the Moon partially eclipsed.] [Illustration: _From a photograph taken at the Yerkes Observatory_ FIG. 4.--THE GREAT NEBULA IN ANDROMEDA, MESSIER 31] Vast as is the Solar System, then, it is excessively minute in comparison with the Stellar System, the universe of the Stars, which is on a scale far transcending anything the human mind can apprehend. THE SOLAR SYSTEM THE SUN Sec. 1 But now let us turn to the…