The N.Z. Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY). SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1906. MODERN ALCHEMY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 5832, 24 February 1906, Page 4

The N.Z. Times.

(PUBLISHED DAILY). SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1906. MODERN ALCHEMY.

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The new conception of matter that has resulted from tho recent striking investigations into tho properties of radium and allied elements has been stated by an authority to rank with the greatest outstanding events in tho history of mankind. In the summary of the historian of tho future this discovery will take its place beside tho discovery of America and the establishment of the Copcrnicnn system. Tho full import of this now admitted conception of the atom as an often instahlo collocation of electrons lias not yet been fully seized upon by the popular mind; hut tho theory is now hardly doubted by the scientific world, and in a few years’ timo ©very school-child.-will bo taught that Dalton’s atomic theory, upon which all our chemistry books have been built, is not a true representation of tho facts of Nature.

Till within tho last twenty years the scientific conception of the universe was that it was built up from about seventy different sorts of matter, which were called elements. No alchemist had ever succeeded in changing one clement into another, and such a transmutation was firmly hold to be beyond tho bounds of human possibility. And now this belief has been shaken to its foundations. Prom the experiments of Professor J. J. Thomson, the existence of portions of matter of much smaller size than tho atom was clearly demonstrated; and the scientific world took into serious consideration tho theory that even the atom was in reality not a perfectly hard, elastic sphere, but a implicated

system composed of lesser units. The corollary to this hypothesis was that pos-ibiy tho seventy different kinds of matter might he found to consist of a single primitive materia!, and that the difference between. say, gold and phosphorus was due to no difference of material, lint solely to the differences of

r.rrangment of the same material within the atom. -At this stage came the discovery of radium and other allied suitstances. which were shown hy Professor KutheiTon.l to Ik> arrangements of the primitive materia! which are not stable —the atom breaking down before our eyes. In these epoch-making experiments Professor Hut her ford was associated with Professor Soddy, who, in a recent presidential address to the Kocntgcu Society, placed the present theories of the constitution of matter bclotvs itis scientific confreres. Briefly, the conclusions towards which our present knowledge points aro as follows: The notion that the various elements e.g., hydrogen, oxygen, iron, phosphorus consist of indivisible and immutable particles differing fundamentally Irum c-uli other is now relegated for ever to the lumber-room of science. Instead, we n ust conceive the universe to have consisted originally of myriads of entities, infinitesimal in fiizo even in comparison with the intinitcvdiual atom, and possessing only one known quality, that cf carrying, or perhaps being identical with, a charge of negative electricity. The theory of tho evolution of the atom may briefly bo stated- thus: Tho ultimate particles, or electrons, as | they ano now termed, aro acted upon by j two .sets of forces, one tending to bring them together, the other to drive them apart. Should tho destructive forces decrease, tho result would bo tho formation of collocations of electrons of every conceivable size, shupo and arrangement; just as wo may conceive, in tho stellar universe, tho evolution of an infmito number of possible solar systems. In fact, as modern science sees tho universe, each atom is strikingly .similar in appearance to our present solar system, possibly without a central sun. But nil these -fortuitous conccurses" of electrons would not necessarily bo permanent, for all would ha subject to tho clash of opposing forces and Uto disintegrating effects of rapid motion. Many would break up; and tho few that survived would represent remarkably stable arrangement?. In othor words, tho atoms that nowbuild up tho universe represent tho survival of tho fittest, and aro actually tho result of a struggle for existence. Thus they aro tho types, just as the human ruco and tho kauri pino and the star-fish aro types, of-this universal struggle for life, which is thus soon to pervade tho inorganic as well as tho organic world, lids conception, therefore, expands Darwin’s theory of evolution in a moat sweeping and comprehensive manner, and flings back the -beginnings of tho universe to tho evolution of tho first atom that could hold its own against tho forces that would destroy it.

Such Is tiio theory: and its proof is no less remarkable. If this hypothesis is true, wo would expect’to find, even at the present day, a few of the difiwtnt species cf atoms in an unstable condition, about to become extinct. Such elements wo actually find in radium, thorium, and actinium. So nicely aro tho forces balanced within their atoms that only a very small percentage of tho atoms break down per second. It may bo inquired whether i there is any experimental evidence to .show that tho process of disintegration is actually going on, though at a [slower rate, among those forms of matter, such as tho commoner elements, which aro comparatively stable. Such evidence doe- exist in tho erase of elements eo widely distributed as zinc, sodium, and potassium.

This new conception, of matter opens up the most extraordinary possibilities for tho future. The alchemist may, after all. bo reinstated. As the differences between gold and lead are but alterations in tho arrangement of electrons of exactly similar composition within their respective atoms, tho problem of transmuting one element into tho other is well within tho bounds of possibility. But this, in Professor Soddy's opinion, is but tho beginning of other and vaster possibilities. Such a theory, already scientifically substantiated, opens up tile possibility of drawing upon sources of energy, locked up in the atom, a million times more potent than any with which wo have hitherto been acquainted, and a million times more valuable than tho gold or other dross which might result ns by-products from tho process. However, for somo years to come, no doubt oar gold mines will continue to pay dividends.