SHAPLEY CLASSIFIES ALL MATERIAL BODIES IN SEVENTEEN GROUPS

All known systems of material bodies, from that of the atom which is a millionth of a millionth of an inch to the cloud of super-galaxies of a thousand million, trillion miles have been classified for the first time according to mass by Professor Harlow Shapley, Director of Harvard's Astronomical Observatory. The classification comes as a result of long research and careful investigation by Professor Shapley.

The classification runs through seventeen major classes, but is left open at both ends--an admission of the probable extension of knowledge in both directions. The significance of the classification is said to lie in the skeleton which is afforded all science to bring some measure of order out of the world's present chaotic knowledge of the systems of various kinds. All systems find a place in this synthesis--atoms, comets, and galaxies; man, radiation, and the space-time complex. When looked at in this objective way, human beings, and all associated terrestrial organisms, appear only parenthetically in one of the subdivisions of the class of Colloidal Aggregates.

Series of Lectures

Professor Shapley is delivering a series of lectures at the College of the City of New York which will terminate on December 18. His general subject is "Flight from Chaos" and the series includes lectures on "The Microcosmos", "Concerning Planets and Their Fate", "The Ends of the World and Beyond", and "the Cosmoplasma".

In the last lecture of the series, the concept of the cosmoplasma will be developed. It is at once the most mysterious and most fundamental part of the universe, and only recently has come under direct experimental study. In brief, it is the substratum of materials throughout the universe, between planets, stars, and galaxies, that has no obvious systematic organization. Hence it includes such diverse constituents as the high speed shooting stars, interstellar calcium gas, and radiation itself.

Puts Man In Place

The survey made in these lectures is a guide to work and contemplation. It aims toward giving perspective. It gives a sane and modest view of man's place in the scheme. But in addition to giving a comprehensive view, the classification serves to interpret some phases of the sidereal universe in a clearer form than before.

From the researches back of the classification, the following points are indicated: our galaxy is not a typical galaxy, a spiral or star cloud, but rather should be compared with clouds of galaxies. It is comparable in dimensions and population with the Coma-Virgo Super-Galaxy, which contains two or three hundred individual galaxies.

See New Galaxies

It follows that the local system of stars around the Sun, and other stars clouds of our Milky Way, are comparable with the typical external galaxies, resembling especially those of the type of the Magellanic Clouds.

New groups of super-galaxies are coming to light in the comprehensive survey of external systems, one of the most conspicuous cases being a pair of super-galaxies in Coma-Virgo at a distance of about one hundred and fifty million light years.

The solar system and planetary nebulae are closely related subdivisions in the class of Planetary Structures, which also includes ordinary stars and therefore constitutes the major portion of the visible universe.

Comets and Nebulae

The class of Meteoritic Associations brings together for the first time comets and the great diffuse nebulae, such as that of Orion.

Within the past year or two at the Harvard Observatory Professor Shapley has developed and published detailed classifications of galactic star clusters, of globular star clusters, and of external galaxies. In this series of lectures new classifications will be proposed for star clouds super-galaxies, multiple stars, planetary structures, systems of satellites, and meteoritic associations.