SCIENCE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 11 August 1924, Page 5

SCIENCE.

STRUCTURE OF MATTER. MODERN DISCOVERIES. CREDIT FOR" CANADA. <Y CABLE— PREBB XSttUCIAiION-OOPYRIGHO rn r . OTTAWA, August 9. J-O Canada goes the credit of being the country where the foundations were aid of the discoveries which are now levolutionising the theories on chemishys,,f in all parts Of the \\oild and will exert a great effect on industrial life.

Sir Ernest Rutherford, addressing the Rotary Club at Toronto, described the early experiments at the McGill ' University Montreal. He said it was in this Dominion that the first experiments in modern ideas on the structure ot matter were carried out, and the •credit belongs in some measure to Canada. Ihe result has been a veritable scientific revolution, and the work had only been commenced. The structure of every .inanimate object—gold, wood, the air we breathe-—depends on the atoms of which it is formed. All, °j formed some substance, and the discovery of the atomic arrangements will enable man to gain a much greater degree of control over the earth.

Sii Ernest Rutherford, explaining his own theory of the structure of the atom, said at its centre was a core the size of a man’s fist, which controls the arrangements of the whole. The part of the atom outside this core was made up of a number of electrons, revolving about the centre and governed bv it as the sun governs the movements of the planets. The core itself is made up of a number of infinitesimal particles, each two thousand times heavier than the electron and charged with electricity. The small particles going to make up this core were arranged in different ways, and, practically speak-. k e .v fo the whole of science lies hidden in the arrangement- of this minute core to each atom. ;

Professor F. G. Donnan, of the University College, London, declared that the time was coming when coal and carbon mil not supply the world’s fuel demand, and the aid of electric power was his suggestion, using electric power where generating stations are near salt deposits for breaking the compound into sodium and chloride. Metallic sodium and chloride gas would then be shipped and burned where heat was required.