WAR ON THE ATOM

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21086, 10 February 1934, Page 13

WAR ON THE ATOM

I BRITISH CONFERENCE ! LATEST METHODS OF ATTACK! LONDON, January 2. i An international "council of war ' J on the ways and moans of attacking I the atom is to be held in this coun-j try, by the Physical Society, probably in the autumn. It will be opened by Lord Rutherford. "The conference will have special interest," Lord Rutherford stated yesterday, "in view of the large part winch British workers have taken in recent discoveries concerning the atom. "Distinguished foreign scientists will be invited to take part," he said, "and all the latest methods of j attack on the atom so as to 'trans-1 mute' one clement into another will j be discussed." j Among recent British • ntribu- j tions to the exploration of the atom Lord Rutherford mentioned the dis- j covery of the "neutron"—which haS| been described as the most penetrating particle known—by Dr. J. Chadwick, at the Cavendish Laboratory, and the proof provided by Professor Blackctt, formerly of the Cavendish Laboratory, that "googlic" or positive electrons exist. Both the "neutron" and the recently discovered "heavy are used by scientists as "bullets" with which to blow the stable inside "core" of the atom to pieces. The interest of these new developments is that each time a new kind of "bullet" is introduced, it appears to blow the atom into different kinds of pieces. And each time that an atom is split in a new way scientists can tell a little more about what it was originally like.