THE INFINITE SMALLNESS OF MATTER.

North Otago Times, 1 November 1906, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE INFINITE SMALLNESS OF MATTER.

By tho term moleculo the smallest possible particle of a chemical sub- ( stance is understood, For example, ]f a piece of cane sugar is broken into smaller and smaller fragments, a point is 'finally reached beyond which the subdivision cannot be carried without producing something different from cane sugar. At this point we have reached the canesugar molecule. ! Now, molecules arc composed of t atoms, which are the smallest pos- j sible particles of the chemical ele-1 meats, and the dimensions of molecules vary greatly according to the number and character of the atoms of which they consist. The hydro-, gen molecule is a very small one, for it is composed of only two atoms of hydrogen. The molecule of cane sugar is comparatively large, containing 12 atoms of carbon, 22 of hydrogen and 11 of oxygen. But i there are molecules of much greater size, The molecule of albumen is believed to contain nearly 1,000 atoms The subdivision of a lump of sugar described above, is purely imaginary, but many substances can be so divided very easily by dissolving them in water or some other liquid. In solution tliey are resolved either into separato molecules, as in the caso of cane-sugar, or into larger or smaller groups of molecules. In the case of substances with very complex molecules, especially, it must not be supposed that all the particles in the solution are cqunl in size ; on tho contrary, there are many reasons for believing that the groups of molecules are in various stages of disintegration. The "ultra (or extreme power) microscope," invented by Siedentopf and Zsigmondy, has made it possible to detect, in a solution, solid particles of a diameter of 1 inillionths of a millimeter (a millimeter is between 1 /20th and l/30lli of an inch). (The limit of the best microscopes is-75 times as great, or !! Inn-thousandths of a millimeter.) This new optical instrument has brought the largest j molecules, such as those ol albumen , and soluble starch, into the realm of visibility. It one of the largest of molecules, that of soluble starch, could be actually magnified 10,000 times in every direction, so that its volume would be multiplied 1,000,000,000 times, it would still be smaller than a pea. One of tho five 'million corpuscles which are contained in a cubic centimeter (between } and one-third of an inch) of blood would, if enlarged in the same proportion, fill a large room, for its diameter would measure six metres,