THE NEW ELECTRON

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21462, 8 April 1933, Page 7 (Supplement)

THE NEW ELECTRON

REVOLUTIONARY DISCOVERY The eccentric electron recently discovered by two Cambridge scientists shatters at a blow one of the most cherished conceptions of modern science. It differs from other electrons in two respects—it turns in an opposite direction under the influence of magnetic forces and, under normal earthly conditions, has a life of only a few thousandths of a millionth of a second as compared with the almost indefinite life of the normal electron. This discovery means that tho accepted scientific theory that all matter is composed of two kinds of units of positive and negative electricity will have to bo modified. In future three, instead of two, fundamental units of matter will have to bo reckoned with. Already the new unit has been christened the " googlie electron," because it " breaks the wrong way," and ifc was detected by the eccentric behaviour of cosmic rays which were being made to take their own photographs in the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge. As a result, Sir Arthur Eddington will have to revise many of his most abstruse calculations, connecting tho atom with the universe as a whole, and physicists may be faced with tho necessity for rebuilding the whole structure of the atom on a new basis. Bearing Upon Proton

It may even be found that tho proton, tho unit of positive electricity, which has been regarded as unsplittablo for moro than 20 years, is nothing moro individual than a state of moro or less permanent wedlock between tho googlie electron and that other recently discovered particle, tho neutron.

Professor E. N. da C. Andrade, ono of tho greatest English authorities on the atom, described the discovery, which was announcol beforo the Royal Society recently as " probably tho most important completely new development in physics within the last 20 years." Tho men responsible aro Mr. P. M. S. Blackett, of King's College, Cambridge, who after tho war forsook tho navy for the Cavendish Laboratory, and Dr. G. Occhiani, another Cambridge scientist, who hails from tho Italian University at which Galileo onco studied.

They have found that although tho googlie electrons are of about the same mass as the ordinary electron, they have a positive instead of a negativo electrical charge, and they are of tho order of 1800 times lighter than the proton," which was previously regarded as tho only possible form of positive electricity. Mr. Blackett showed photographs of the unexpected " break," and explained that they had been obtained from a study of the so-called " cosmic rays," to explore which Professor Piccard twice risked his lifo in record-breaking balloon ascents, while other scientists have gone to the opposite extreme and lowered their instruments to tho bottom of tho deepest lakes. Secret ol Discovery The whole secret, Mr. Blackett explained, lay in a technical advance by which these rays, which arrive vertically about every two minutes, had been made to pull the trigger which provided the light to take their own photographs. In this way they had been able to obtain many more successful exposures than previous workers, and these included a few photographs of the eccentric electron. Mr. Blackett stated that the " googlie's " lifo ends when it meets an ordinary electron. " They combine in a death pact," he said, " and the only sign of their past existence is a sudden burst of radiation." In all Mr. Blackett showed some 20 photographs which revealed that these cosmic rays arrived in bunches with as many as 23 separate tracks on the same exposure, while their energy might be as great as several thousand million volts.

Mr. Blackett emphasised that his results confirmed a suggestion made last year by an American scientist, Dr. K. Anderson, of Pasadena University, that such particles might be found in cosmic radiation, although his own and Dr. Occhiani's work had been in progress for some months before the suggestion was published.