RADIUM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12401, 24 October 1903, Page 1 (Supplement)

RADIUM.

WONDERFUL DISCOVERIES. [FfiOM OUB OWN CORRESPONDENT.] London, September 11. # At the British Association meetings this at Southport, some wonderful discoveries in relation to radium were made known. Last night, addressing the mathematical and physical section, Mr. Chas. Vernon Boys, F.R.S., observed that of the events of last year one stood out beyond all others, not only for its intrinsic importance and revolutionary possibilities, but for the excitement that it had raised among the general public. The discovery by Professor and Madame Curie of what seemed to be the everlasting production of heal, in easily measurable quantity by the minute amount of a radium compound was so amazing that, even now that many had had the opportunity of seeing with their own eyes the heated thermometer, they were hardly able to believe what they saw. This, which could barely be distinguished from the discovery of perpetual motion, which it was an axiom of science to call impossible, had left every chemist and physicist in a state of bewilderment. Added to this, Sir William Crookes had devised an experiment, characteristic of him, in which a particle of radium kept a screen bombarded for ever, so it seemed, each collision producing a microscopic Hash of light, the dancing and multitude of which forcibly compel the imagination to follow the reasoning faculties, and realise the existence of atomic-tumult. This mystery was now being attacked, and theories were being invented to account for the marvellous results of observation; but the theories themselves would a few years ago have seemed more wonderful and incredible than the facts, as we believe them to be, do to-day. An atom of radium, Mr. Boys continued, can constantly produce an emanation, that is something like a gas, which escapes and carries with it wonderful properties; but the atom, the thing which cannot be divided, remains, and retains its weight. The emanation is truly wonderful, ft is self-luminous, it is condensed by extreme cold and vapourises again; it can be watched as it oozes through stop-cocks or hurries through tubes, but in amount it is so small that it has not yet been weighed. Sir William Ramsay has treated it with a chemical cruelty that would well-nigh have annihilated the most refractory or permanent known element; but this evanescent emanation comes out of the ordeal uudimmed and undiminished. Professor Rutherford, of Montreal, then described his experiments on the emanations of thorium and radium. It was first noted that, something having radio-active qualities was given off by thorium, and that whatever this was it could be conducted in air through a pipe without losing its property. Its radio-active quality diminished by half in every minute. But radium had a similar emanation; the power of which only diminished one-half every four days. He described the experiments which led to the conclusion that the emanation is a radioactive gas of the argon family. Its emissions were bodies of the mass of an atom, projected with a velocity of the tenth of that of light. It was the first time that atomic particles had been shown to be projected at ' such a speed. An enormous amount of energy must be carried off by the emission, energy which must have been confined in ' the atom itself, in the form of rotating ', bodies, which liberated by some disturbance 1 Hew off at this tremendous speed. With ! regard to radium, light of two or three candle-power could be given off by a particle ' that could not be .weighed and could only * be seen with a microscope. The emission fiom the gaseous emanations, settling in- • visibly on surrounding objects, was itself " remarkably radio-active in quite another ' way. The whole of the phenomena sug--1 crested the gradual breakdown of the atom ' by successive stages. The disintegration of 1 matter had long been a theory, but that it 8 should occur atom by atom with inconceivable slowness had not been imagined. s -Professor Dewar described his experi--1 meats with radium at low temperature. At ' j the low temperature of liquid hydrogen he s I found that the light given off was actually n j increased. As to the supposed continuous ! production of heat, even at excessively low I j temperature he had had a very sensitive '.- ! calorimeter made, consisting of a vessel j of liquid hydrogen, immersed in another , vessel of liquid hydrogen, and screened all - round by screens impervious to all kinds of e rays. Madam Curie" brought .7 gramme of !, radium bromide, which was dropped in the '~ liquid hydrogen, and it was found that y the production of heat shown by the boiling :- of the hydrogen, was greater even than at e the temperature of boning oxygen, which o was about half-way down from normal 1. temperature. Any known thermo-chemical it substance emitting heat at the rate at which d it was continuously emitted by radium would exhaust itself in less than two and 1, a'-half days. n Professor Boltzmann, of Vienna, and Proie j lessor Schuster continued the discussion,'