Reviews of the Week
False Trail
Worlds in Collision. By Immanuel Velikovsky. (Gollancz. iss.)
THE central theme of Worlds in Collision is that, according to Dr. Velikovsky, between the fifteenth and eighth centuries B.C. the earth experienced a series of violent catastrophes of global extent. Parts of its surface were heated to such a degree that they became molten and great streams of lava welled out ; the sea boiled and evapor- ated ; rivers ran with blood ; mountain ranges collapsed, while others were thrown up ; continents were submerged ; tremendous earthquakes occurred ; enormous tides were raised causing great floods ; showers of hot stones fell ; electrical disturbances of great violence caused much havoc ; hurricanes swept the earth ; a pall of darkness shrouded it, to be followed by a deluge of fire. This picture of a period of intense turmoil within the period of recorded history is supported by a wealth of quotations from the Old Testa- ment, from the Hindu Vedas. from Roman and Greek mythology, and from the myths, traditions and folklore of many races and peoples. The reader cannot fail to be impressed by Dr. Velikovsky's extensive knowledge of such lore and by the wealth of .references which he gives. The specious plausibility of the arguments, in which he himself evidently firmly believes, is likely to induce acceptance of the main theme by uncritical and unscientific readers.
These catastrophic events in the earth's history are attributed by Dr. Velikovsky to a series of awe-inspiring cosmic cataclysms. In the solar system we see the several planets moving round the sun in the same direction in orbits which are approximately circular and which lie nearly in the same plane. Dr. Velikovsky asserts that this was not always so, but that in past times their orbits inter- sected ; collisions between the major planets . occurred, which brought about the birth of comets. He states that in the time of Moses, about the fifteenth century B.C., one of these comets nearly collided with the earth, which twice passed through its tail. The disrupting effect of the comet's gravitational pull, the intense heating and the enormous tides produced by it, the incessant violent electric discharges between the comet and the earth, and the pollution of the atmosphere by the gases in the tail started all the trouble. Dr. Velikovsky attributes the oil deposits in the earth to the precipi- tation, in the form of a sticky liquid (naphtha), of some of the carbop and hydrogen gases in the tail of the comet, while the manna upon which the Israelites fed is similarly accounted for as carbo- hydrates from the same source.
This comet is supposed to have collided with Mars in the time of Joshua in the year 747 B.c. and, as the result of the collision, to have lost its tail and to have become transformed into the planet Venus. The incredible assertion that the planet Venus did not exist, as such, until comparatively recent times is made in all seriousness. An attempt is made to justify it by reference to a four-planet system in Babylonian astronomy. But to the ancients there were seven planets (i.e., moving stars), after which the seven days of the week were named ; the sun and the moon, but not the earth, were counted as planets.
Further catastrophes according to Dr. Velikovsky ensued. The new planet Venus collided with Mars ; as a result the orbit of Venus became nearly circular but that of Mars was shifted nearer to the earth so that in the year 687 15.c. (March 23rd being the crucial date) Mars nearly collided with the earth. The destruction of the army of Sennacherib is attributed, inter alia, to the effects of this near miss.
These various encounters are supposed to have been responsible for repeated changes in the earth's orbit, in the inclination of its axis, and in the lengths of the day, the seasons and the year. The. earth on one occasion is supposed to have turned completely over, so that the sun rose in the west and set in the east. Dr. Velikovsky argues that between the fifteenth and eighth centuries B.c. the length of the year was 360 days and that it suddenly increased to 3651 days in 687 B.C. The orbit of the moon and the length of the month were also changed ; he argues that in the time of Romulus the month was thirty-five or thirty-six days long and that for some decades there were only ten months in the year. In support of this is the naive remark that the Roman months Quintilis (July), Sextilis (August), etc., are now the seventh, eighth, etc., months. The comments of chronologists on this new chronology will be awaited with interest !
On its publication in the United States this book attracted wide- spread attention and became a best seller. The wide variety of the quotations which have been brought together as corroborative evidence may all too readily give the impression that these planetary collisions did actually occur and that Dr. Velikovsky has revealed some of the past history of the solar system, which could never otherwise have been known.
The bodies in the solar system move around the sun under their mutual gravitational attraction. Their paths can be computed and their positions determined both for future time and for past time. If a collision between Mars and Venus had occurred in the past, as Dr. Velikovsky supposes, then, starting from the present positions and motions and computing backwards, -allowing for the perturba- tions of all the planets, we should find that, at a certain epoch in past time, the positions of Mars and Venus were identical. It is not difficult to compute back for the few thousand years which have elapsed since these events were supposed to have happened. It is found that no collision occurred ; the mutual perturbations of the planets cause some distortion of their paths, but their cumulative effects remain within rather narrow limits
This is sufficient to disprove the main theme. There are many other serious objections to the argument. A comet could never change into a planet ; the two objects are essentially different. The mass of the largest comet is extremely small compared with that of any of the planets. The mass of a comet is so small that its gravitational attraction is insufficient to bind it together as a single solid body, thereby enabling the pressure of the sun's radiation to drive out from it the stream of minute particles which form its tail. The density of the matter in the tail is extremely low ; the earth has passed through the tail of a comet without any detectable effect. Geologists will no doubt be amused by Dr. Velikovsky's explanation of the origin of the earth's oil deposits.
It is a pity that so much erudition should have been wasted in
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