MOLECULES IN MOTION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21244, 27 January 1931, Page 13

MOLECULES IN MOTION.

FILMED BY X-RAY. NEW STRIDE IN SCIENCE. Motion pictures of molecules in action are being taken. Professor George L. Clark, of the University of Illinois, disclosed at Los Angeles recently. This stride in science, offering untold possibilities for discoveries, was revealed at the meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. The motion pictures are made possible by a new tube, operated at 50,000 volts and 20 to 100 milliamperes, which has cut the time of X-ray pictures from two hours to one-fiftieth of a second. It .is used as a super-microscope, presenting diffraction rays revealing molecular structure, rather than the direct plane photography. • The X-ray diffraction is on a flourescent screen, of which motion pictures are being taken as molecular changes occur, thus showing the progress of molecules in action for the first time in the history of science. The first new tube used was built of glass. It has been displaced by an allmetal tube with pin holes for the beams to take the microscopic diffraction pictures, and ends of porcelain. Professor Clark showed the radiologists a motion picture of his laboratory work, revealing types of tubes and their construction, as well as the diffraction pictures of molecular structures. Students working with Professor Clark, noted for hie advancement in X-ray tube design, are developing his ideas in the University of Illinois laboratory at Urbana. K. E. Corrigan, of Galesburg, Illinois, a student, receives a large share of credit from Professor Clark for aiding in the construction of the new tube. Others assisting were W. A. Sisson, of Roanoke, Va., J. C. Zimmer, of Lincoln, Neb., H. 'G. Dawson, of Urbana, 111, all students, and Dr Lucy W. Pickett, department of chemistry, Mount Holyoke College, and Dr C. W. Stillwell, of the University of Illinois.