JEANS SPEAKS BEFORE NEW SIGMA XI SOCIETY

The first public meeting to be held under the auspices of the newly-founded Harvard Chapter of the Sigma XI Society was held last night in Sanders Theater when Sir James Jeans, the eminent British astronomer and mathematician lectured to a capacity audience on the "Annihilation of Matter." Professor Harlow Shapley of the Harvard Astronomical Observatory introduced the speaker of the evening.

Jeans discussed modern theories of matter and how the knowledge acquired in the last twenty years indicates that the source of stellar radiation must be matter itself. He talked fully half of the time upon the much discussed cosmic radiation and showed how calculations of its energy corresponded with the energy that must result from the annihilation of hydrogen and helium atoms.

In conclusion Dr. Jeans said that at the turn of the century there were the two great laws of conservation of mass and energy, but now that mass was merely another form of energy, these two laws were replaced by one more general and all-inclusive law of conservation of cosmic energy.

Sir James, besides being an eminent scientist, is a well-known author of theoretical as well as popular books on scientific subjects.