BIRTH OF THE ATOM?

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1707, 26 March 1913, Page 5

BIRTH OF THE ATOM?

"MOMENTOUS COMMUNICATION."

EXPERIMENTS AT THE CHEMICAL SOCIETY. REMARKABLE RESULTS. '• , History—right or wrong—was made on February 8, at the meeting of the Chemical Society, at Burlington House, Loudon, by the reading of two papers, which tlio acting president characterised as a momentous communication ami as unsurpassed lor dramatic interest. Th? papers described the results of experiments that go right down to fundamental conceptions, that, if the authors' results are accepted, cither establish the idea of the transmutation of elements on a firm basis or announce the transformation or energy into matter. The joint work of Sir Milium liaiusay, Professor Norman Collie, and Jlr. 11. Patterson, goes to pr-ovo that on passing an electric discharge through a vacuum tuba containing sufficient hydrogen to conduct tlio current 31 eon and j helium make their appearance. To appreciate the significance of the experiments it is necessary to bear iu mind what in the past have been two fundamental conceptions of science—that tho elements are separate individuals none of which can be altered in any way or changed one into another, and that matter and energy are indestructible without having any inter-relation. It will bo in th-s minds of most how Madame Curie discovered radium, one of the heaviest of the elements, and how* iu tho i'ace ot fierce opposition, which included tho late Lord Kelvin, the workers on radium established the fact that this radium ''was continially disintegrating, breaking down into helium and a whole chain of' other products, themselves unstable. The establishment of that view, lor which Sir William Kamsay and 11 r. Frederick Soddy were chielly responsible, established that the transmutation of one element, radium, at any rate did occur, but it was an overloaded element, disrupting through the force of its own complexity, and it was not possible to retard or hasten the rate of tho decomposition. . -

The next stage in the history was in Sir William Ramsay's experiments published a few years ago. There was frank scepticism when he explained that lopper salts under the influence of radium emanation, broke down, were transmuted, in fact, "in minute quantities into their kin-elements lithium ■ and sodium, and also when he found that there was u similar tendency for silicon and thorium to bo transmuted into carbon. When the felloes of the Chemical Society met on February 6, therefore, they knew that transmutation was an established fact with regard to such complex and mysterious elements as radium, its antecedents and descendants, and that the claim was before them that the influence of this substance induced transmutation in other elements.

The interest was transferred from the heavy end of the atmoc gamut to its simplest. The authors started with a vacuum tube, containing sufficient hydrogen to conduct electricity, with a IJuhmkprl'f coil and cells, the electrical apparatus used on every motor-car, and nothing else. Through this tube, containing nothing but hydrogen, the authors passed the electric current, and found, that tlio gases helium and neon had appeared. Needless to say, elaborate experiments werjo undertaken to ensure that then presence was not due to the entrance of impurities, or to their already being contained in the glass of the instruments. Both Professor' Collie and Mr. Patterson 'arrived at their results independently, each without a knowledge of the other's work. ' Now the, atomic weight of hydrogen is one, of relium four, of oxygen a-x----teen, and of neon twenty. As a last experiment the vacuum tube was surroiind"o:l by another ■vacuum.tube, and this time, when the experiment was jnade, both neon and helium were found in"re!atively large quantities in the space between the two vacuum tulics. At first Mr. Patterson found only helium, but when he added a trace of oxygon to this' space between the vacuum tube lie got neon, the evidence suggesting that there had been a synthesis of the element neon according to the formula, helium, (1) plus oxygen.(l 6) equals neon (20). For the details 'of tlie experiments it is necessary to rofer to the original lMpers, hut if the experiments are accepted, rind, they come with .splendid credentials, they out deep into'- fundamental conceptions. What is the jrigin of the gases? it may be that, under the influence of the current one or other of the elements.in the glass or the electrodes is transmuted, ll may bo, as Mr. Patterson seems ii-.clined to think, that the energy of the charge builds hydrogen -up into helium, and it may bo that wo were hearing of (he birth of a primordial form of. matter, lile that which Newlands and others groped after, of matter brought into exislenco out of the ether by the energy of the electric discharge and setting itself to build up atoms. It is significant that the elewhich have been found wo those that appear on the birth of a star when it is at its hottest before the rtlier elements known on this earth Imvo -nip.de their appoarance. This is pure speculation, and, as such, of little value save as an 'hypothesis. Tor the present the experiments themselves, which staggered and astonished the Follows of the Chemical Society, are sufficient. It is true, as the acting-president remarked, that they rest on tlio authority of the spectroscope alone, but they have these advantages which were not enjoyed by the earlier experiments of Sir William Ramsay. They are Within the reach of every chemist to repeat; they aTe concerned with simple elements instead of with the amazing complex of radium, they are essentially artificial, that is to say, they como into existence as the result of' measurable human agency, and are subject to the test of experiment instead of bc-ing the mero point of observation. It lias with good reason and with the thomugn approval of the society that Professor Smith oils described papers as possessijur irrent-er dramatic interest than any hitherto brought' before the society, ami thnt he moved that the thanks of the society should l:e given to tfe? authors, to whom they felt a great obligation _ for their momentous communication. -"WeSiminster Gazette."