GAMBLING WITH THE ATOM.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3132, 28 August 1922, Page 8

GAMBLING WITH THE ATOM.

Is (.he world on the verge ol the < greatest scientific triumph of the ages.- 1 ; Is the world on the verge of extinc- i lion? These are the questions hanging in the test tubes of modern laboratories, where scientists are trying to explode an atom of hydrogen in order to harness its energy. The stakes are these: i Success means that our earth hecomes a paradise. The work ol the world can be done with one-seven- , thousandth the present effort. Mankind, freed from material shackles, will soar to undreamed-of mental and spiritual heights. The golden age will dawn. Failure means the explosion of every atom in the world—every man and beast and tree, the waters of all the seas, the mountains and the whole mass of the globe itself shattered in an instant into microscopic dust or gas. No man living has any idea what will happen when an atom is turned into energy. The great men who in the past few years have delved deeper into the secrets of nature than the toilers before them through all the centuries acknowledge that they do not know. They hope, when they learn how to turn' an atom into energy, to control the process, to harness the atom to do the work that now takes man's muscle and brain. Put they admit, as a possibility, that the explosion of one atom may "have the same effect on all other atoms as the ignition of one grain of gunpowder in a magazine. They cannot tell. They are willing to take the risk : Alreadv the great achievement seems within grasp. Progress has been made. Physicists in the University of Chicago. liv" inflicting the greatest electrical shock in history, have shaken an atom and almost exploded it. Oxford, Cambridge, Continental, ami American Universities are vying, with each other for the greatest honor scientist, has ever won —if there be any of the scientist left to receive the honor, or anybody left to bestow it, after the explosion ! Modern physics has established that matter can apparently go out of existence; when this happens, through mysterious laws of nature which arc not understood, the lost matter is transformed into energy. This discovery is the basis of the Great Gamble. To the elements in nature have been assigned "atomic weights," in accordance with their weight relative to each other. Taking oxygen as weighing 10. hydrogen, the lightest of the elements, weighs 1.008. Tins means that it lakes a trifle less than 1(3 hydrogen atoms to weigh as much as one atom of oxygen. It lias been proved, and :s now universally accepted by physicists, thai when hydrogen is combined with another element it loses in weight, and the atomic weight becomes 1. The .00H of additional matter present when if is in a pure slate disappears, goes out of existence, is transformed by nature into energy. This discovery that nature by an unknown process turns 8-10.0'JOths of an atom of hydrogen into energy (without exploding it) led to the Great Gamble. Why, science asks, should we not destroy the whole atom and transform it all into energy, to be stored to do the world's work? During the past few years the senaliunal and revolutionary discovery has been made that the basis of every atom, whether an atom of gas or oxygen or gold, is l hydrogen. (From thiw fact arises the danger that lies in exploding even one atom of hydrogen). Every atom is a little solar system. It, has a central sun, a tiny, nucleus positively charged with electricity, and made of hydrogen. (That the nucleus is hydrogen is almost, but not quite, certain. Sir Ernest Rutherford! of Cambridge, the greatest authority on the atom, believes it practically established.) Around tin's central sun revolve one or more negatively-chairged electrons as planets. A central sun with only one planet, one electron, is an atom of hydrogen, the lightest of the elements. Every other element, it is known, is composed of a similar nucleus with more than one electron or planet circling around it. Not only is the central nucleus of every atom (whether of hydrogen the lightest., uranium the heaviest, gold, or any other) apparently identical —but, incredible as it sounds, the electrons in the different atoms are all exactly alike. This is known because electrons from different kinds of atoms have been examined. There is no difference between them. The only difference between an atom of hydrogen gas and an atom of gold is that the latter has more planets, or electrons, circling around its similar central sun. Hence hydrogen, a, fragment of which science is Irving to blowup or destroy, is the basis of all that exist* hi our world. How to explode an atom is a problem as yet unsolved. The theory at present most in vogue is that a tremendously powerful direct electrical current, producing a shock to an atom greater than any single blow ever delivered through human energy, may explode an atom. Physicists' at Oxford, we understand, are trying to raise £150,000 to defray the expenses of sending a shock of two million volts, by direct current. into an atom. (A direct current is many times stronger than an alternating current, which is normally used.) Hut meanwhile a laconic cable has been received that the experts of the University of Chicago have sent ;> charge of (300,000 volts direct current into an atom, and that a flash of the helium spectrum was seen. This last phrase, unintelligible, to the lavniaii. has thrown those physicists who' have heard of it into great excitement. What it means is this: Helium is the lightest element that exists, after hydrogen. The shock administered at Chicago, we understand, knocked off most of the electrons or planets revolving around the attacked atom's central nucleus until only four were lelt. I he atom was thus'transformed into helium, as revealed hv the spectroscope. Between this result and knocking off all the electrons and annihilating the central nucleus itself, when i\\>- atom will have disappeared and been transformed into energy, there seems no impassable gulf. 'Hie electric -hock, which was not great when 600.000 volts were applied, niav decide the Great Gamble with 2.001) 000 volts The amount of energy stored up in atoms has been exactly calculated " lll, » " <"" of coal is bnmed some energy is produced by natural means, and that energy i, s used to perforin sen-ice to Immunity. Hut if (he energy really latent in a U f coal can be produced by destroying all the atoms present. energy oquivnlouf lo thai achieved by burning 7000 tons of coal will he available. This assumes Dial the Great Gamble succeeds; thai science explodes an atom, and as many atoms as it chooses, without affecting all the atoms in the world. Once this explosion hikes place, the problem of storing (he energy released is not regarded as insoluble. The dream is that energy can he produced to any extent needed, and stored, through a simple laboratory process. Coal. oil. water-power, steam will become obsolete. Whatever work has lo be done, whatever machinery driven, atomic energy will attend to. at infinitesimal expenditure of human energy and time. When a match is touched to a (oilier of drv paper, or dry straw, the lire spreads until all the paper or straw is burned Bid a tiny flame upp// ( .,i

to a lump of coal burns only a speck of coal. The lire goes out. So with damp or thick paper. Similarly, the air is full of nitrogen, and there is no theoretical reason why a lighted match might not set fire to the nitrogen in a room, or why the fire might not spread to all the nitrogen in the world and burn up our planet. But nature, who had to deal with lightning and fires caused by the sun before man was. attended to this risk. The nitrogen in tbe air is like the lump of coal or the damp paper touched by a match. A little burns, but only a little Avium an electric spark is exploded, more nitrogen ignites—a fireball is formed. Mom <>f the nitrogen in the air has been sot aflame than usual- but the fire does not spread. But hydrogen! Science, in the Great Gamble, is trying to explode an atom of that. And hydrogen occurs in all atoms. There is something outside the laws of nature. Nature lias made no provision for what man in Ins laboratories is seeking to achieve. Hence the possibility that to explode a hydrogen atom may he like setting fire'to dry paper or straw. Tl a mass of dry ps'pcr or straw were as bulky as the world, one match could burn it nil. One ntom exploded, like one Ltrain of gunpowder, may set oft an Tbe other atoms. Who knows. Not the scientists who are trying the experiment. . 1 The analogy we have given, conparing the explosion of. an atom to fire is fairly close, but it is not exact, for'what is" proposed is not to set fire to an atom, but to make it disappeai i„ transforming it into energy. Neveitbeless. some form of explosion must take place. Will the explosion spread. It, may affect only one atom, it may affect" many surrounding atoms, as when an electric spark causes a fire ball by igniting nitrogen in the atmosphere. Or it may affect all tin atoms that exist. Professor A. S. Eddmgton, ol Cambridge, the great astronomer, lias declared that the mysterious nova, the new stars in the heavens winch often attain brilliance and then fade again, are not great explosions caused by collisions between heavenly bodies He gives reasons why tins commonly accepted theory appears impossible. He believes the nova which astronomers witness are internal explosions of single stars, caused by something that lias happened on or inside the star itself. The spectroscope, when nova flame out in tbe heavens, invariably reveals great (lames of hvdrogen gas rushing out tor millions of'iniles into space. Commenting on this view, a famous physicist at Oxford, who views with grave: misgivings the Great Gamble, common led :- "The simplest explanation ol these nova is that some fool on each star has just discovered how to ignite an atom' of hydrogen. I a 111 afraid that soon astronomers on distant worlds from which the earth is now invisible, will see a great flame in the heavens where we now are. Perhaps this is God's way of limiting the arrogance of His creatures. In all His worlds we climb to so much knowledge, then we learn too much about the atom and then—Puff!!!"