...3. Within a finite period of time past, the earth must have been, and within a finite period of time to come the earth must again be, unfit for the habitation...going on at present in the material world are subject. 33 (my italics) By quoting this signal passage from nineteenth-century physics, Carpenter snscnbed...

...Within a finite period of time past the Earth must have been, and within a finite period of time to come must again be, unfit for the habitation of man as...at present constituted, unless operations have been and are to be performed which are impossible under the laws going on at present in the material world....

...in form: Within a finite period of time past, the earth must have been, and within a finite period to come the earth must again be, unfit for the habitation...going on at present in the material world are subject. (514) In other words, it would be possible if it were not impossible. Thomson's bleak stoicism, partially...

...Finally, 'Within a finite period of time past the earth must have been, and within a finite period of time to come the earth must again be, unfit for the habitation...to which the known operations going on at present are subject'. 81 Expressed in formal legalistic style (almost certainly to establish his rights to...

...wrote: "Within a finite period of time past the earth must have been, and within a finite period of time to come the earth must again be, unfit for the habitation...the laws to which the known operations going on at the present in the material world are subject." Of course, there is not really any conflict between...

...“within a finite period of time past, the earth must have been, and within a finite period of time to come the earth must again be, unfit for the habitation of man as at present constituted,” because the earth would be too cold to sustain life. Though Thomson could not bring himself to say...

...not to physical forces but the force of language). "Within a finite period of time," intoned Kelvin, "the earth must again be unfit for the habitation of man as at present constituted." 24 His implication is clearly that if "man as at present constituted" can only reconstitute himself...

...could be reversed. His first article on the subject concluded that the earth would eventually become: 'unfit for the habitation of man as at present constituted,...on at present in the material world are subject'. 10 This peculiarly equivocal conclusion hints that some unnamed agent might intervene at the eleventh...

...“Within a finite period of time past the earth must have been, and within a finite period of time to come the earth must again be, unfit for the habitation...the laws to which the known operations going on at the present in the material world are subjectf' Of course, there is not really any conflict between...

...Thomson's scenario, at this point no further mechanical work can ever be extracted from the universe, “unless operations have been, or are to be performed,...on at present in the material world are subject.” 3 The popularization of this unsettling doomsday vision or allegory of last things (fig. 1) as the...