SPLITTING THE ATOM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 34, 10 February 1930, Page 10

SPLITTING THE ATOM.

WITH 9,000,000 VOLTS. ATTEMPT IN EUROPEAN STORM CENTRE. HARNESSING THE LIGHTNING. DESTRUCTION OF WORLD "UNLIKELY." (By R. S. Panton.) BERLIN, December l(i, 1929. Two famous German scientists, Dr. Fritz Lange and Herr Arno Brascli, are making superhuman efforts to split the atom by tremendous high tension current, 8000 feet up the towering Monte Generoso, which rises majestically above the Lake of Lugano in Switzerland.

The little band had at one time consisted of three, but the third member, Herr C. Urban, whilst constructing the experimental station early this year slipped on the edge of a precipice and fell to his death hundreds of feet below. I had this afternoon an exclusive interview with his two companions who are at present experimenting and lecturing at the Physics Institute in Berlin. Both are surprisingly young.

I met the quiet and unassuming Dr. Lange first amid a mass of weird instruments. He proceeded to explain the experiments to me in a torrent of German forced out by scientific ardour. "What we want to do," he said, "is to split tlie atom by means of the greatest tension current ever known." Then he paused and went oil. "But come down to my partner. He will be able to explain it to you better than I."

Still talking he led me down, bare corridors reeking of the smells only to be made by chemical experiments. He showed me into the high tension laboratory and left me in the hands of his collaborator, Herr Brasch, whose explanations were somewhat clearer.

"We had two problems," explained Herr Brasch, excusing the muddle of terrifying coils and instruments with a wave of his hand, "firstly, that of getting the enormous high" tension necessary; and secondly, that of getting a tube to carry it. Of course, we might

have been able to produce this high tension in the laboratory, but millions of marks would have been necessary and just at present neither we nor Germany can afford that much. So we hit on the idea of harnessing the lightning, and built our experimental station on the famous Monte Generoso, which, as you knoAv, is the storm centre of Europe. Then we constructed a cable hundreds of yards long and stretched it across the valley. It is earthed at one end and the other is insulated by means of a double chain ot' 1(!0 steatite insulators weighing 52801b."

'"And the idea," I said, interrupting liis flow, "is that the lightning should strike the cable?"

"Gott in Himmel! Nein!" burst out Herr Brascli. lifting his hands in horror. "'That would be far too much. Any little thunder storm or electrical disturbance in the neighbourhood is quite enough for our purpose.

"Ilie second problem, that of finding the tube to carry the current was far more difficult." He stopped as he saw I was going to ask about the tube. "I'm sorry," he said, "but I can't give you anv particulars about the tube, as so far it has been kept secret, nothing official having been published." He laughed at niy disappointed face. "You journalists!" he gibed. "Sie sind wundcrvoll! You are the gods of the new world." Then he became serious again. "Well, I don't mind' telling you that it has already carried the huge current of 9,000,000 volts and that the action .of the electrical units is greatly accelerated. It is this quickened movement which we hope will play a large part in the splitting of tho atom and give us control of atomic energy."

What will happen," I said lokinglv, "if you do split the atom? Will "the earth fall to pieces as some predict?"

Herr Brasch laughed and shrugged his shoulders. We cuii't sav," lie answered, "but it is very, very unlikelv that the world would fly into bits. Still, we don't know. It is all a step in tlie dark. Whv, we don't even know if we will split the atom. We are in the same position as the first man to make fire. We mar be on the eve of a discovery as potential and revolutionary as was the discovery of fire. "The German electrical industry realises this, and it is only owing to the genei osity of the leading German electrical firms, and with the help of a small Stato grant, that we have been euabled to carry out these experiments." I asked him when the final, decisive experiment would be made. Herr Brasch again shrugged his shoulders in tlie way so typically Ger-

mail. "I do not know exactly," he answered, "but Dr. and I hope it will be verv shortly."

I stood up to go, and with a twinkle in his eye Herr Brasch gave me his hand, "Ancl you will be worrying about the world falling to pieces, won't you?"' He gave me a reassuring pat on the shoulder as I left. "Don't worry!" lie said. "I am not a member of a suicide.club. I would not be experimenting if I thought the possible result might be the eiid of the world."