In Search of the Miraculous

completed in a large and well-arranged "chemical factory" with various laboratories at its service.

Passing further to the cosmos of small cells, which stand on the border or beyond

the border of microscopic vision, I again saw an explanation of the inexplicable. For

example, cases of almost instantaneous infection by epidemic and infectious diseases

in general, particularly those where the causes responsible for the infection have not

yet been found. If three seconds is the limit of life for a small cell of this kind, and is equal to the long life of man, then what would be the speed at which these cells multiply when for them fifteen seconds would be equal to four centuries!

Further, passing to the world of molecules, I first of all came face to face with the

fact that the brevity of the existence of a molecule is an almost unexpected idea. It is

usually supposed that a molecule, although structurally very complicated, taken as the

basic, so to speak, living interior of the bricks from which matter is built up, exists as long as the matter exists. We are obliged to part from this pleasant and soothing

thought. The molecule, which is alive inside cannot be dead outside and in remaining alive it must, like everything living, be born, live, and die- The term of its life, equal to an electric spark or to one ten-thousandth part of a second, is too small for it to act directly on our imagination. Some comparison, some analogy, is necessary in order to

understand what this means. The dying cells of our organism and their replacement by

others bring us near to this idea. Dead matter, iron, copper, granite, must be renewed

from. within more quickly than our organism. In reality it changes under our eyes. If you look at a stone, shut your eyes, and immediately open them again, it will now not

be the stone which you saw; in it not a single one of the molecules which you saw the

first time now remain. But even then you did not see the molecules themselves, but

only their traces.

I came again to the New Model of the Universe. This explained also "why we cannot see molecules," about which I have written in Chapter

II of the New Model of the Universe.

Further in the last cosmos, that is, in the world of the electron, I felt myself from the very beginning in the world of six dimensions. The question arose for me as to

whether the relation of dimensions could not be worked out. The electron as a threedimensional body is too unsatisfactory. To begin with it exists for one three-hundredmillionth part of a second. This is a quantity far beyond the limits of our possible imagination. It is considered that an electron within an atom moves in its orbit with

the speed of one divided by a fifteen-figure number. And since the whole life of an

electron in seconds is equal to one divided by a nine-figure number, it follows that

during its lifetime an electron makes a number of revolu-

tions round its "sun," equal to a six-figure, or taking into account the coefficient, a seven-figure number.

If we take the earth in its revolution round the sun, then according to my table it

makes in the course of its lifetime a number of revolutions round the sun equal to an

eleven-figure number. It looks as though there was an enormous difference between a

seven-figure and an eleven-figure number but if we compare with the electron not the

earth, but Neptune, then the difference will be considerably less, namely the

difference between a seven-figure and a nine-figure number, that is, two figures in all

instead of four. And besides the speed of revolution of an electron within the atom is a

very approximate quantity. It should be remembered that the difference in the periods

of revolution of the planets round the sun in our system represents a three-figure

number because Mercury revolves 460 times faster than Neptune.

The relation of the life of an electron to our perception appears thus. Our quickest

visual perception is equal to 1/10, 000 second. The existence of an electron is equal to

1/30, 000 of 1/10, 000 second, that is, one three-hundred-millionth part of a second,

and in that time it makes seven million revolutions round the proton. Consequently, if

we were to see an electron as a flash in 1/10, 000 second, we should not see the

electron in the strict sense of the word, but the trace of the electron, consisting of seven million revolutions multiplied by thirty thousand, that is, a spiral with a

thirteen-figure number of rings, or, expressed in the language of the New Model of the Universe, thirty thousand recurrences of the electron in eternity.

Time, according to the table which I had obtained, undoubtedly went beyond four

dimensions. And I was interested by the thought whether it was not possible to apply