“The Theory of Cosmic Eras”

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

1932 (1977)

The text is an interview between Alexander Leonidovich Chizhevsky and Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky and is given according to the first publication in the journal “Chemistry and Life” (No. 1, 1977).

А. L. Chizhevsky: pages of reminiscences about K. E. Tsiolkovsky
The record published below was provided to the editors by Nina Vadimovna Chizhevskaya, keeper of the archive of Alexander Leonidovich Chizhevsky.
These memoirs were recorded by Chizhevsky in the early sixties; the described meeting with Tsiolkovsky is dated 1932.
Tsiolkovsky was 75 years old at the time, while Chizhevsky was 35.
Despite the difference in age, the two outstanding scientists were linked by sincere friendship and common scientific interests.

The Theory of Cosmic Eras

“I am a pure materialist. I recognize nothing but matter.”
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

“Mankind is immortal.”
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

…Once, entering the lightroom, I found Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky in deep contemplation. He was in a light-colored kerchief, with his collar unbuttoned, and was sitting in his chair, deep in thought. He did not at once notice that I had come up the stairs and approached him.

“Interrupted,” ran through my mind. But Konstantin Eduardovich held out his hand to me and said:

– Sit down, Alexander Leonidovich. I was the one who was thinking in vain about things that could not be explained…..

We said hello, and I sat down next to him on a chair.

– What do you mean, things that can’t be explained? – I asked. – What kind of miracles? It seems to me that everything that exists in the world is explainable.

– Of course, from man’s point of view. For this he is given a brain, although imperfect, especially in some …

– No, Alexander Leonidovich, that’s not quite so. The brain, it is true, can penetrate into many things, but not everything, not everything… There are limits to it….

– So the ancients knew this,” I said, “our ignorance is huge, and we know very little.

– No, it is a question of a different category altogether. This question itself cannot be posed, for it is the question of all questions…

– What do you mean? I don’t quite understand.

– Very simple. There are questions to which we can give an answer – even if not exact, but satisfactory for today. There are questions we can talk about, we can discuss, argue, disagree, but there are questions that we cannot ask others, or even ourselves, but we certainly ask ourselves in the moments of the greatest understanding of the world. These questions are: why all this? If we have asked ourselves a question of this kind, it means that we are not just animals, but people with brains in which there are not just Sechenov’s reflexes and Pavlov’s drools, but something else, something different, quite unlike either reflexes or drools… Does not the matter concentrated in the human brain lay down some special paths, independent of Sechenov’s and Pavlov’s primitive mechanisms? In other words, are there no elements of thought and consciousness in brain matter, developed over millions of years and free from reflex apparatuses, even the most complex?…? Yes, Alexander Leonidovich, as soon as you ask yourself a question of this kind, it means that you have broken out of the traditional clutches and soared to infinite heights: why is all this – why do matter, plants, animals, man and his brain – also matter – exist? Why does the world, the universe, the cosmos exist? Why? Why?

Matter is one existing thing, regardless of its movement or displacement in space. I’m talking about external motion, such as the movement of my hand with my ear, or the movement of the Earth in its orbit. This motion does not define matter and can be neglected. Deeper knowledge of the structure of matter is not yet available to us. But someday there will come a turning point when mankind will approach this “esoteric” knowledge. Then it will come close to the question: why? But for this to happen, billions of years of the space age must pass…

Many people think that I care about the rocket and worry about its fate because of the rocket itself. That would be a profound mistake. Rockets for me are only a way, only a method of penetrating into the depths of space, but by no means an end in itself. People who have not grown up to such understanding of things talk about something that does not exist, which makes me some kind of one-sided technician, not a thinker. This is unfortunately how many people who talk or write about rocket ship think. I don’t argue, it is very important to have rocket ships, because they will help mankind to disperse over the world space. And that’s what I’m working for. If there will be another way of traveling in space, I will accept it too… The whole essence is resettlement from the Earth and settlement of the Space. We should go towards, so to say, space philosophy! Unfortunately, our philosophers do not think about it at all. And who else but philosophers should deal with this question. But they either do not want to, or do not understand the great significance of the question, or are simply afraid. It’s possible! Imagine a philosopher who is afraid! Democritus who is a coward! Unthinkable!

Airships, rockets, the second beginning of thermodynamics are the business of our day, but at night we live a different life if we ask ourselves that damned question. They say that asking such a question is just pointless, harmful and unscientific. They say it’s even criminal. I agree with this interpretation… Well, and if this question is asked… What should we do then? Retreat, bury ourselves in pillows, intoxicate ourselves, blind ourselves? And it is asked not only here in Tsiolkovsky’s den, but some heads are full of it, saturated with it – and for more than one century, more than one millennium… This question requires neither laboratories, nor tribunes, nor Athenian academies. No one has solved it: neither science, nor religion, nor philosophy. It stands before mankind – huge, boundless, like the whole world, and cries out: why? Why? Why? Others – those who understand – simply remain silent.

– Yes, yes,” I said. – There is no answer to this question. But maybe you, Konstantin Eduardovich, have thought of something?

Tsiolkovsky got angry. The auditory mouthpiece went round and round in his hands.

– Invented? How do you ask? No, Alexander Leonidovich, you can’t say that. This teacher, like all the little ones of this world,” and Konstantin Eduardovich pointed to his chest, “can answer this question… Nothing but some guesses, perhaps reliable ones!

– First of all, to answer any question, you must formulate it clearly,” I said.

– Well, that’s as much as you want. I can formulate this question, what remains unclear is whether a person can formulate it correctly and precisely. I don’t know this, although I would like to know, of course. The question boils down to the same thing: why and why this world exists, well, and, of course, all of us, that is, the essence of matter. This question is simple, but to whom can we ask it? To ourselves? But it is in vain! Thousands of philosophers, scientists, religious figures for several millennia tried to solve it one way or another, but finally recognized it as insoluble. This fact does not make it any easier for the one who asks himself this question. He is still tormented, suffering because of his ignorance, some people even say that this kind of question is “unscientific” (understand this: unscientific!), because no one, even the smartest people, can answer it. Only they, these smartest people, have not explained why it is unscientific. I thought this way: any question can be scientific if it is answered sooner or later. Unscientific questions are all those questions that remain unanswered. But man is gradually unraveling some riddles of this kind. For example, in a hundred or a thousand years we will know how the atom is organized, though we will hardly know what “electricity” is, from which all atoms, all matter, i.e. the whole world, the cosmos, etc. are built. Then science for many millennia will resolve the question of what “electricity” is. So, no matter how hard science tries, nature is always presenting it with new and new problems of the greatest complexity! When the question of atom or electricity is solved, a new question will arise about something incomprehensible to the human mind… And so on. It turns out that either man has not grown to the solution of such problems, or nature is cunning with him, afraid of him, as if he had not learned more than what is required by the statute. And we do not know anything good about this statute either. Again “darkness in the clouds”. So one thing clings to another, and in reality it turns out that we are facing an impenetrable wall of uncertainty.

– And this uncertainty is called anti-science, – I added oil to the fire …

– Exactly: unscientific!.. – exclaimed Konstantin Eduardovich. – Scientific everything that we hold in our hands, unscientific everything that we do not understand! You can’t get far with such a label. And at the same time we know that we know little, very little of all that nature offers to our study … We still have the whole world to study – so much of it is unknown and simply incomprehensible, and we are already arranging fences: this can be, and this can not!…. Take this and study it, and don’t you dare touch it. In my small practice such recommendations are constant: develop a metal airship, here is money for you, but don’t touch rockets, because rockets are beyond your teeth! But I don’t need such recommendations! I don’t need it at all!

– Thank God, it seems to be known to everyone.

– Well, you see, it’s no use if everybody knows it. There are forces greater than “everyone”. There’s nothing to be done! These are the forces that prohibit us from thinking and working out the obscure questions our brains ask us. I don’t argue, maybe this is even good for the prosperity of mankind. For getting close to some things can be detrimental to human beings. Well, imagine that we would suddenly learn to turn matter completely into energy, that is, we would prematurely realize Einstein’s formula into reality. Well then – with human morality – it would be a disaster, people’s heads would be blown off. The Earth would turn into a hell: people would show their pigeon mindedness – there would be no stone left on a stone, not to mention people. Mankind would be destroyed! Remember we once talked to you about the end of the world. It is near if the mind does not prevail! This is where prohibition is necessary – a strict prohibition in the development of problems about the structure of matter. And on the other hand, if we impose a ban on this field of physics, we must slow down the rocket, because it needs atomic fuel. And to slow down the rocket means to stop the study of space… One thing clings to another. Apparently, progress is impossible without risk! But here mankind is truly risking everything.

– But we took a branch off to the side,” I said, wondering about the main topic of this conversation.

– No, not distracted, but made a branch to the side by necessity. The basis of the basics is still ahead, although it is a little difficult to explain it.

– If at all possible, Konstantin Eduardovich.

– It’s possible to explain even what we don’t know! If I asked myself: why, why does everything exist? – then I can give an answer to it – though, far from immediately… In the end, everything is reduced to the existence of matter in the world, which, it seems, does not need any special proofs.

– It’s clear! Humans, animals and plants are all stages in the development of matter itself, and only matter – called Earth, Mars, the Sun, Sirius, Coal Sacks, the Magellanic Cloud, microbes, plants, animals, humans, etc. Unlived dead matter wants to live and wherever possible lives and even thinks in the form of human beings or “etheric beings”, let’s allow that too.

– Physical and chemical conditions are necessary for life,” I inserted loudly, speaking directly into the auditory mouthpiece.

– Of course they do. But one cannot deny the basic property of matter – “the desire to live” and, finally, after billions of years – to cognize. And here before you is Tsiolkovsky, who, as a part of matter, wants to cognize: why does it, matter, in its cosmic sense, need it? Why, I ask… And you, Alexander Leonidovich, are silent… And I am waiting for an answer. What can you say?

– Not much, – I answered… – You know my poems. In them I said something about the cosmic meaning of matter.

– Yes, yes, poems about matter, but that’s not enough. But I want to tell you something… We all ask ourselves why the world exists, what mission it fulfills, to what heights it goes through man – surely through man! And immediately we ask ourselves questions: what is the ratio of the amount of thinking matter to non-thinking matter… and we get a completely imperceptible value, even taking into account those geological periods when man lived. There is immeasurably more rock than thought, more fire than brain matter. Then we pose the following question: does nature need brain matter and human thought? Or maybe it – thought, consciousness – is not necessary for nature?

– And such a question can be put.

But if it exists, it means that nature needs it, thought. This is where the story with geography begins, we are approaching the essence of all things. Like you in your poems. The existence in nature of a brain apparatus that cognizes itself is, of course, to a certain extent a fact of the greatest importance, a fact exceptional in its philosophical and cognitive significance. I want you to understand my thought: if the human brain apparatus exists in nature, and nature needed billions of years for this, it means that it is necessary for nature, and it is not only the result of a long struggle (albeit accidental, not directed) of nature for the existence of human thought in the cosmos…

And there is another important point in my reasoning: whether matter in general is a non-random phenomenon in the cosmos or whether it is random, that is, temporary and finite. This question stands at the beginning of all questions and without answering it the answers to other questions will be wrong. The question about the randomness or non-duality of matter was raised by the ancient sages, though in a veiled form. They taught that there is a spiritual world where “there are neither tears nor sighs, but endless life”.

The idea of the “randomness” of matter came to my mind after I learned that the average mass density of matter in the galaxy does not exceed one divided by one with twenty-five zeros, grams in one cubic centimeter <...>.

It is possible that this number of 10²⁵ is exaggerated if one atom accounts for a few cubic centimeters of outer space.

For outer space, which has a radius equal to a million parsecs, I define this ratio as nothing more than one divided by one with 38 zeros …

I wrote down this number on a piece of paper and asked:

– Konstantin Eduardovich, what do you mean by “outer space”, after all, it is necessary to agree…

– Of course, I now do not believe that “ether” fills outer space, as thought a few decades ago, and recognize it for “vacuum”, that is, outer space is materially empty (according to Democritus), except for material traces in it. <...>

If we look into this space that surrounds us, we see nothing but these 10^-38 grams in one cubic centimeter. Let us leave the theory to the physicists, let them solve such problems, but philosophers cannot remain silent even today, although there is still much we do not know…

– It means, – Konstantin Eduardovich continued, – that matter in space occupies a vanishingly small volume in comparison with the volume of “empty” space. Thinking further, I had to come to a strange, at first glance, position: the smallness of matter speaks of its randomness or temporality, because everything random or temporary has a small or vanishingly small value. For random and temporal magnitudes and values, their smallness is the most convincing characteristic. What is the implication of this? I will answer it myself: generally speaking, it will not be a big mistake to recognize that a random quantity can disappear someday: either its lifetime will end, or, speaking the language of physics, it will be transformed into radiant energy (that is, what we now call the complete annihilation of matter – Alexander Chizhevsky). Generally speaking, small quantities and values are absorbed without residue by large ones, and this happens the sooner the greater the difference between large and small values, and here we have a colossal difference equal to 10³³.

– So,” I said, “do you put forward the principle of annihilation, or the principle of loss, or the transformation of infinitely small quantities?

– If you like, yes! You could say that. It’s a kind of monism. A monism. But don’t think of it as entropy! God forbid, entropy will not exist in that world either, as it does not exist in this one for open systems.

Konstantin Eduardovich further developed his idea about the disappearance of solid, liquid and gaseous matter and its transformation into a radiant form of energy, which is not new and is dictated by Einstein’s formula of equivalence of energy and mass. But Einstein’s formula is applied to the matter existing in our time and has a reversible character, because its one-sidedness does not follow from the formula. So, let us admit such a kind of matter, the transformation of which into energy or radiation will be one-sided, irreversible. Apparently, this character of matter transformation will exist in the terminal era of the cosmos, and then a guiding, or vector arrow will be placed above the equality in Einstein’s formula. This small arrow will tell the future superhumans about many things. And these superhumans will not need matter, because the question about its purpose in space will be fundamentally resolved.

Tsiolkovsky stopped for a minute, – took a breath, then quietly said:

– If someone were to overhear you and me now, he would say something like this: here is an old fantasist developing his thoughts in front of a young one, and the latter listens to him and does not object. But I assure you that this matter is not as trifling as anyone thinks. It is a matter of the greatest and most intimate philosophical importance, which is even scary to talk about. That is why people called such thoughts “erroneous”, “anti-scientific” and ordered to keep their mouths shut. But human thought breaks through this barrier, it does not recognize any prohibitions and barriers and does not read the labels that the gendarmes put on tongues and heads… As you wish, consider me backward or retrograde – whatever you want, and I must tell you about these thoughts of mine, since they are all here in me (Konstantin Eduardovich touched his forehead) and hold me captive.

Many assume that my thought about the eternity of mankind is cut off by a flower growing on a grave. This is poetic, but not scientific. Such a circularity is undeniable but primitive. It is already being realized now and cannot be refuted. But it is not cosmic, which means it is limited to millions of years. It is not of interest, it is not cosmic in scope. It is only a poetic symbol. Starting from it, we must move on. Let’s try it without fear!

– Let’s try it! – I agreed. – Courage, they say, takes cities.

– First of all, it is necessary to establish and affirm one basic fact about which almost all religious teachings tell. But we analyze it and affirm it from materialistic positions, namely: for the whole history of thinking mankind no “soul” has been discovered in man, although it was searched for and even attributed to it “place and weight” or “mass”… Everything turned out to be nonsense. No one has ever discovered the beyond either, although there has been a lot of deception! After death there is nothing but the disintegration of the human body into chemical elements. In our time this fact is not in any doubt. The whole of metapsychology or parapsychology is reduced to the “transmission of messages” from brain to brain and similar phenomena, the mechanism of which will be outlined in the next century. Everywhere and everywhere is the same matter, but it is the whole point of the matter… Putting aside the false conceptions of men, let us look at their pure symbolism. “Soul”, “otherworld”, “eternal bliss”, “eternal life” – these are the essence of symbols, vague guesses of many millions of thinking people, who conveyed their deep intuition in the most material images. It is paradoxical, but it is a fact, and it could not be otherwise. “Soul” at them possessed a place and weight, “otherworld”, “heaven” and “hell” were on a certain territory of the Earth or somewhere in space, etc. In our time, thinking people have nothing left of these conceptions except symbolism – a vague guess about the future of mankind. We must recognize its right to exist, for it is impossible to recognize many millions of people as insane or simply stupid! These symbols, which are common in all religions, must be deeply worked over, deciphered more fully from the cosmic point of view. I have thought about them at my own pleasure and in different variations…

And yet all these are just guesses on a new level. And they would remain so if we didn’t have a cosmic point of view. The evolution of the cosmos gives our viewpoints a new existence, freed from fiction and from primary childishly naive ideas about the soul or the beyond. Immediately everything is transformed, becoming more or less clear and intelligible. Having swept away ancient fictions, we ascend to a new position and speak the language of our modern materialism. We acquire the right, based on the millennial symbolism of the ancients, to ask the question: why? why? – In other words, we acquire the right to look at matter not from an idealistic, but from a cosmic point of view. Here one weighty remark comes to mind …

Konstantin Eduardovich wiped his glasses, coughed, raised the mouthpiece to his ear and continued:

– Do you really think that I am so shallow that I do not allow the evolution of mankind and leave it in the appearance in which man is now: with two hands, two legs, etc. No, that would be foolish. Evolution is a forward movement. Mankind, as a single object of evolution, also changes, and finally, after billions of years, becomes a single kind of radiant energy, that is, a single idea fills the whole cosmic space. Of what our thought will be next, we do not know. This is the limit of its penetration into the future; it is possible that this is the limit of agonizing life in general. It is possible that it is eternal bliss and endless life, about which the ancient sages wrote… Are you listening to me, Alexander Leonidovich? Why are your eyes closed? Are you asleep?

– I am listening to you attentively, – I answered, – and I closed my eyes to concentrate …

– But don’t laugh and don’t give me a place behind bars in the insane asylum.

– Yes, what are you making up, Konstantin Eduardovich, I am listening to you attentively and I do not think that your thoughts are subject to ostracism.

– Good! So, it means that we have come to the conclusion that matter not only rises to the highest level of its development through the mediation of man, but also begins to cognize itself little by little! You realize, of course, that this is already a tremendous victory for matter, a victory which cost it so dearly. But nature went to this victory steadily, concentrating all its grandiose possibilities in the molecular-spatial structure of microscopic germ cells… Only in this way, after billions of years, could the human brain, consisting of many billions of cells, with all its astonishing possibilities arise. And one of its most astonishing possibilities is the question we are talking about today: why, why, etc… Indeed, a question of this kind could only be asked at the pinnacle of knowledge. Whoever neglects this question, then, does not understand its significance, for matter, in the form of man, has reached the point of posing such a question and imperiously demands an answer to it. And the answer to this question will be given – not by us, of course, but by our descendants, if the human race survives on the globe until the time when scientists and philosophers build a picture of the world close to reality.

Everything will be in the hands of those future people – all sciences, religions, beliefs, technology, in a word, all possibilities, and nothing future knowledge will neglect, as we – still malicious ignoramuses – neglect the data of religion, the works of philosophers, writers and scientists of antiquity. Even the belief in Perun will be useful. And it will be needed to create a true picture of the world. After all, Perun is the god of thunder and lightning. Aren’t you a fan of atmospheric electricity? Yes, and I am a secret admirer of it …

– Yes,” he continued, “to answer this question: why? – a man must be armed with knowledge to the teeth, otherwise he will not be able to give an exhaustive answer. Generally speaking, those who deny, deny this question, those who classify it among the obscurantist, religious and other such questions, do not know what they are doing. Mankind cannot live in such shocks as it lives, to move its thought at will, for man is not a machine, and it should be remembered: man is tuned by nature in a certain tone, it is definitely a major tone, a demanding tone, and not a plea for pardon. Man is gradually reborn – from a pitiful petitioner he becomes in a belligerent posture and begins to demand: “Tell us, Mother Nature, the whole truth. This is how the new cosmic era, to which we are approaching, slowly but surely, announces itself. <...> The entry into the space age of mankind is more important than the accession of Napoleon Bonaparte to the throne. It is a grandiose event that touches the entire globe, it is the timid beginning of humanity’s dispersal through the cosmos.

The cosmic existence of mankind, like everything in the cosmos, can be subdivided into four main eras:

1. The era of birth, into which humanity will enter in a few decades and which will last for several billion years.

2. The era of formation. This era will be marked by the dispersal of humanity throughout the cosmos. The duration of this era is hundreds of billions of years.

3. The era of human flourishing. Now it is difficult to predict its duration – also, obviously, hundreds of billions of years.

4. The terminal era will take tens of billions of years. During this era, humanity will fully answer the question: Why? – and will consider it a good thing to put into effect the second law of thermodynamics in the atom, i.e. it will turn from corpuscular matter into radiant matter. What is the radiant era of the cosmos – we know nothing and cannot assume anything.

I suppose that in many billions of years the radiant era of the cosmos will again turn into a corpuscular one, but of a higher level, to start everything again: suns, nebulae, constellations, planets will appear, but according to a more perfect law, and a new, more perfect man will come into the cosmos again… to pass through all the high eras and after many billions of years to extinguish again, turning into a radiant state, but also of a higher level. Billions of years will pass, and again out of the rays will arise higher class matter and will appear at last a supernova man, who will be with a mind as far above us as we are above a single-celled organism. He will no longer ask: why, why? He will know it and, on the basis of his knowledge, he will build his world according to the pattern he considers more perfect… Such will be the change of great cosmic eras and the great growth of the mind! And so it will go on until this mind will know everything, that is, many billions of millions of years, many cosmic births and deaths. And so, when the mind (or matter) will know everything, the very existence of separate individuals and the material or corpuscular world it will consider unnecessary and will pass into a ray state of a high order, which will know everything and desire nothing, that is, into that state of consciousness which the human mind considers the prerogative of the gods. The cosmos will become a great perfection.

This is the scheme, still a bare scheme, but the periodic paths of human birth and death are clear even now. It is clear now that the question: why and why not? – will be solved by mind, that is by matter itself, in infinite billions of years, maybe not before the whole matter surrounding us changes, passing gradually through animate life and thinking brain of man, superman and his absolute perfection. In my constructions I operate with hundreds of billions of years according to the size of the cosmos itself, for cosmic matter, time and mind are related to each other by a simple mathematical relation which I have not yet written….

I was silent, stunned by Tsiolkovsky’s billions of years and the unlimited flight of his thought. There was something solemn and touching in this construction – tragic for man, tragic and yet great.

I was silent and waited for what else Konstantin Eduardovich would say. And then he began:

– I have shared with you, Alexander Leonidovich, my innermost thoughts, which cannot be published, for the time has not yet come for their perception. I don’t even write them down… What for? <...>

Konstantin Eduardovich stopped for a moment, corrected the hearing tube and, hearing neither approval nor protest from me, said:

– Well, here, it seems, is the whole theory of the space eras. A secret theory – for the “initiated”. Of course, this is only a rough sketch, a sketch that requires a broad and well-founded sweep. This will be done by philosophers of the future. Judging by your poems, our points of view on the evolution of matter coincide. We have only one discrepancy: it is time. You, Alexander Leonidovich, give too short time, I give enough time. To answer these questions, the life of mankind and superhumanity stretches up to a billion billion years. And I assure you that this is also a very short time compared to the birth, formation, blossoming and disappearance of visible galactic systems… Having passed into the radiant form of a high level, humanity becomes immortal in time and infinite in space. I think that at present such a “radiant humanity” cannot be understood by anyone. It seems to us ridiculous, absurd… However, amazing premonitions have never deceived a thinking person. The form of an idea can be manifold: it manifests itself in the most unexpected ways…

This conversation with Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky and his theory of cosmic eras surprised me very much. He boldly treated the idea of cosmic matter, of “radiant” mankind and with billions of billions of years, which he allotted to its evolution, so that, having passed through the brains of higher organisms, it could turn into an irreversible form of radiant energy, the most perfect form of matter in general, in addition to possessing some special cosmic consciousness, spilled in the world space. All this seemed to me more than strange, and Konstantin Eduardovich’s statements bordered on mysticism. And at the same time, matter, its evolution and its radiant form were everywhere and remained until the end. It was quite materialistic and, consequently, no mysticism was possessed by this kind of worldview. This I want to emphasize especially, for at first sight it may seem that this conception of Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky is metaphysical. Thinking over this conception, I had to come to the conclusion that Konstantin Eduardovich, as a man of science, did not sin against the basic thesis of the advanced view and remained, even in the most extraordinary constructions, a progressive man – a materialist in the best sense of the word.

And yet his thoughts were surprising. Could it be that they seemed so surprising to me? Otherwise, either I did not understand them, or I did not accept them as a kind of philosophy – the philosophy of cosmic eras united by matter. So, Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, in contradiction to all his statements, suddenly spoke about the end of matter, about the end of the world. It was either wrong or horrible! Let it happen in billions of billions of years! Suppose that it does not contradict some yet-to-be-formulated law to which matter, its being in the future cosmos, obeys! Who knows? This is a matter for future physics and space eras.

This is where I put a stop. I stop in my recollections at this point. Is it worth continuing to think about the completely unknown and even unimaginable. Of course it shouldn’t. Of course it doesn’t make any sense!

Konstantin Eduardovich, having finished talking about his new theory, shook his head. For several minutes we were silent. His left hand, holding the hearing tube, was trembling from fatigue, but he did not notice it. I made a sign to him to put the receiver down on the floor, as he usually did at the end of a conversation. I considered our conversation over. I could not object, argue, or express my perplexity. I had to “digest” everything he had said. I shook hands with Konstantin Eduardovich and went downstairs. At home I made a small note: “Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, the theory of cosmic eras. 10¹⁹ Earth years. Stadiality. Entropy of the atom. Radiant humanity.”…

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