SUBSTITUTE FOR RADIUM?

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 112, 14 May 1935, Page 6

SUBSTITUTE FOR RADIUM?

The large-scale creation in the laboratory ■of a substitute for natural radium now seems to be within sight (says the "Manchester Guardian"). Dr. J. D. Cockcroft, of Cambridge, announced yesterday to the Conference on Industrial Physics in Manchester that a Cnlifornian scientist, Professor A. O. Lawrence, had succeeded in producing a radio-active form of the element sodium which emitted rays of an energy twice as powerful as that of radium itself. ISo far the new snbsta/.ce had only been made in minute quantities, but Dr. Cockcroft agreed that it was feasible that larger amounts could bo secured, According to the quantity of electricity available. T'hc discovery is the latest triumph in the science of manufacturing radio-acthe substances, a science Which is still little more than a year old. Natural radium, as is well known, is immensely expensive (about £300,000 the ounce) and has many disadvantages. Because of its enduring and dangerous potenj-y many precautions have to be taken in its use. The output of energy cannot be directly controlled; its strength of emission merely declines over a period of thousands of years with a mathematical exactness which is automatic enough to be used by astronomers as a '"time-clock" from which to estimate the age of the earth. The- artificial "radio-sodium" only keeps its energy for half a day. This quality would obviously lead to difficulties in large-scale manufacture and distribution. But equally also its application in medicine should be much more easily controllable.