UNBALANCED ELEMENTS

Northern Advocate, 5 June 1924, Page 8

UNBALANCED ELEMENTS

RESEARCH AMONG ATOMS,

J Lecturing on April 4at the Royal Institution on the nucleu- or the atom, or on what he described as the "No Man's Land of Science," Professor Sir ' Ernest Rutherford gave a clear, coldcut, logical statement as to the modern views on atomic structure. It was now known, he said, that electricity possessed an atomic structure, -and he proceeded to show at the outset that there i existed a beautiful uniformity between hydrogen, that had one elementary constituent or proton and one electron, and uranium, whose nucleus consisted of 92 elementary constituents and 02 electrons. Sir Ernest then described the recent methods of vlie Cavendish Laboratory and the way in which they had found it possible very greatly to extend their observations of the way in which hydrogen particles or protons could be slu-'t out on bombardment with alpha u-irticles from various elements, and he. stated that the number of these elements had bee;' very gieat.lv extended. Physicists divided elements into those that had odd and even numbers, and it was a mystery «.vhv these elements behaved so differently. ITe surmised that this must bo due to some cause within the nucleus, and among the suggestions that he made was t J :at the odd (dements were iji a state of unequal equilibrium, and were therefore, unbalanced in their behaviour. Research on th'.s subject was being ."■■r.elv pu-sued at the Caven•lish La I "ntoiv with considerable prospects of SI.K'fOSS.