BRITISH ASSOCITION.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXV, Issue 198, 19 August 1904, Page 4

BRITISH ASSOCITION.

THE PRESIDENXIA!, MR. BAX.FOTO DEFEJIds j^. The New Tkeory bf kat%. (By Cable-PreM_^ tatloß^j^ LONDON, August 18 The British Association opened its, nual session at Cambridge, the m Z secretary for the year being HaiorpT MacMahon, F.R.S. ■ Jvf The Right Hon. A. J. Balfonr PAS., detvered the pvesidentißg taking for his subject the new theory of matter. X ms held, constituted a bolder an/a Ssai isfying attempt to unify physical than -,v.y of the doctrines been previously offered for consideratiwt The speaker went on to contend thai natural science as it grew, came to X more, and not ess upon the terpretation of the universe He phasised his view that any' Bcneme e ®: thought that was built out of material rived from natural science alone must iT evitably remain incoherent. The worlds foremost searchers after n>. ultimate secrets of the universe length committed themselves to a th.J~ *llch has been long foreshadow^ Z now is apparently substantiated & * t ta study of the newly discovered substuiu* called radium. Professor Crookes, *« ut £ fn Berlin, and Professors Bodge and Curio in London, have "onfidently ntiwlnK that It is easy to aefine this greaJS tton of -ctence in scarcely motfSJnTS? tence. To comprehend it, however most as far beyond the power of nmnan face eternity or iX[ The old theory that atoms of eleieih consist of indi.lslble units of mart™jg been definitely discarded. Instead It- »2 ' pears N hat eaeli atom is a whole stPllS system of infinitely smaller but absoS identical units, all in orbital motion 9 ™* Hydrogen atom consists of seveu hundred such atoms or ions. The natnre orldentiry of each substance depends upon the nnmber of such ions contained in each at™ -thus eleven thousand two Hundred iona in each atom produces -what is known a« oxygen, and one hundred and thlrty-seren thousand two hundred of the same ions if combined in a single atom, would sleld COld. ■*: ,

The nature of these ions la, for lack of ; « better word, electrical. In other Word.* elpctririty and matter are one and th* same thing. Professor Lodge and assocl. ates believe that tter is not stable in its atoms, as was heretofore supposed thus, water may he separated into oxygen and hydrogen, but it. was never before supposed that atoms themselves were capable of disintegration. Professor Cnrle recently showed that radium spontaneously and contlnuously disengaged heftt, and gaye off omauatious similar to Itself in constant and evea violent streams or radiations. Professor Lodge surmised that the process of disUU tegi-ation of atoms may constitute the evo. inti«u of chemical elements. The whult theory is. in fact, an astronomical one. Chemistry has, in fact, become astronomy of the infinitesimal. The world : Is dearlji on the verge of the greatest reTeUtloa science has yet revealed.