Friday, March 28, 2008

Apocalypse #13, Death #5, Time #14

The result would inevitably be a state of universal rest and death, if the universe were finite and left to obey existing laws. But it is impossible to conceive a limit to the extent of matter in the universe; and therefore science points rather to an endless progress, through an endless space, of action involving the transformation of potential energy into palpable motion and hence into heat, than to a single finite mechanism, running down like a clock, and stopping for ever.

William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) “On the Age of the Sun’s Heat" (1862)