RADIUM RAYS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1636, 8 July 1903, Page 31

RADIUM RAYS

REPORTED CURE OF GANGER. VIENNA, July 5. The Society of Physicians here has received reports that radium rays have cured one case of cancer. “Probably if half a kilogram of radium (or a little over a pound) were in a bottle on that table,” said Professor Sir William Crookes, in a recent lecture,

“it would kill us all. ‘lt would almost certainly destroy our sight and burn our skins to such an extent that we could not survive.” Radium is a constituent of pitchblende, which itself is rare. From a ton of pitchblende only fifteen and a half grains of radium can bo extracted, and that with the greatest difficulty. A grain of radium is estimated to be worth about £4OO, and the value of a kilogram is placed at £400,000. An interesting fact concerning this marvellous newly-discover-ed element is that it was first identi.(ied by a woman,. Madame Curie, who engages in complex chemical Y.experiments in company with her Tiusband. The more that is learned of radium the more wonderful, does the metal seem. It is. self-luminous,, shining with a bluish light. It also continuously gives off “particles” or “electrons,” with a velocity approaching that of light. The energy so developed by a single grain is said by Professor Crookes to be “enough to lift the whole of the British fleet to the top of Ben Nevis: and I am not quite certain that we could not throw in the French fleet a& well.” Whence comes this tremendous energy? That is the question which now perplexes physicists. The of conservation of energy seems to be in the balance. From nothing can come nothing . is the first law of physics, yet radium appears to give off particles indefinitely and to lose not at all in the mass. And as if this were not sufficiently wonderful. M. Curie stated recently to the French Academy that radium gives off heat, constantly maintaining its temperature 2.7 degrees above its environment. From where does this heat come ? Probably it will eventually be found that radium does actually lose, in weight, but the loss must be infinitesimal. The chemicophysical questions which have been raised regarding radium are certainly the most interesting in the world of science since tlio discovery of the Rontgen rays.