Somehow the thought of human agency
obtrudes itself in connection with the word ``explosion,'' and we
smile at the idea that giant powder or nitro-glycerine could blow up a
planet. Yet it would only need enough of them to do it.
After all, we may deceive ourselves in thinking, as we are apt to do,
that explosive energies lock themselves up only in small masses of
matter. There are many causes producing explosions in nature, every
volcanic eruption manifests the activity of some of them. Think of the
giant power of confined steam; if enough steam could be suddenly
generated in the center of the earth by a downpour of all the waters
of the oceans, what might not the consequences be for our globe? In a
smaller globe, and it has never been estimated that the original
asteroid was even as large as the moon, such a catastrophe would,
perhaps, be more easily conceivable; but since we are compelled in
this case to assume that there was a series of successive explosions,
steam would hardly answer the purpose; it would be more reasonable to
suppose that the cause of the explosion was some kind of chemical
reaction, or something affecting the atoms composing the exploding
body. Here Dr Gustav Le Bon comes to our aid with a most startling
suggestion, based on his theory of the dissipation of intra-atomic
energy.
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