Inhabited Planets

Only a person devoid of imagination would dispute the conviction of Nikola Tesla, the famous inventor, that other planets are inhabited. The scientist regards this conclusion as “mathematically certain.” Speaking as one of them, Mr. Tesla, who has just celebrated his seventy-sixth birthday, is certain that “every other planet has to pass through practically the same phase of existence the earth did, and life is started on them during that favorable phase by rays of some sun.” The average layman arrives at a similar conclusion as his faith outgrows the metes and bounds of his existence.

But neither class is content with the proof that rests upon reason alone. Science, in particular, is ever reaching out for more concrete evidence. Mr. Tesla regards as his life work the annihilation of distance, one phase of which has to do with interplanetary communication. He hopes that it will some day be possible to overcome the apparently insuperable obstacles to that achievement. And he warns against surprise if communication should be established by the earth and should show that “there is civilization on other planets far ahead of ours.”

That is a daring thought, but not much more so than some of our present attainments would have seemed to the early inhabitants of this planet. The science of astronomy teaches that the earth is only a very small part of an illimitable universe. Who shall say what secrets of the universe will some day be explained to man?