Abstract
IN discussing the significance of the two planet-like bodies which are now supposed to revolve around 61 Cygni and 70 Ophiuchi, Mr. Sen writes1 that “we find that there can be at most two planetary systems in the galactic system, on Jeans's theory”. If the true number were two, or anything like two, it would, of course, be out of the question to suppose that there could be three planetary systems so near to us in space. But I do not think that the true number is anywhere near to two; in a recent letter in NATURE2, I calculated that something like one star in six might well be accompanied by planets, in which case the number of galactic planetary systems would not be two, but some tens of thousands of millions. There is no reason why 61 Cygni and 70 Ophiuchi should not be two out of these millions of systems, so that I think that Mr. Sen's argument against my tidal theory fails.
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