A DISTINGUISHED VISITOR

Otago Witness, Issue 2674, 14 June 1905, Page 14

A DISTINGUISHED VISITOR

INTERVIEW WITH PROFESSOR

RUTHERFORD.

(Special to the Daily Times.)

AUCKLAND, June 6,

Professor Ernest Rutherford, of M'Gill University, Montreal, arrived laet night by the 'Frisco mailboat. He was met here by Mrs Rutherford, who has been paying a visit of some months to her relatives in the South Island. Professor Rutherford's trip to the colonies has been somewhat delayed by the i-sue of the second edition of his work on "Radio Activity," which has already made him famous in the scientific world. The first edition of this book was quickly sold out, and as large additions were needed for the second issue Professor Ruiherfcrd had to see it through the press.

The researches of this distinguished young New Zeaiandeir in physics and electricity have won high praise from Lord Kelvin and other foremOSt scientific authorities, and Profepsor Rutherford has received a most flattering offer from Yale University to take the chair of Physics there. Professor and Mrs Rnuhcrford go on to Rotorua tomorrow, -and, if the weather permits, will go south, via Wairakei and Taiipo, to Pipiriki and Wangamii.

Professor Rutherford is now distinguished in the world of contemporary science as an investigator and experimental physicist. He has earned fame for himself at an age at which few m«in have ever attained such eminence, and his name will go down to history inseparably associated with that scientific marvel of the century — radium. Professor Rutherford's book on "Radio Activity," already in its second edition, has confirmed the high estimate of Lord Kelvin an.] other distinguished authorities, and the ffct that he is a New Zealander born and bred and a graduate of the New Zealand University should make his career especially interesting to all colonial leaders. Dr Rutherford generously accorded an interview to your representative to-day, and in the course of it gave information of the deepest interest.

In reply to a question about the present position of hie own special study, Professor Rutherford gave some interesting details of the investigations made by himself and other scientists into the nature and form of radium. Within the last year or so, he said, a great deal of work has been done in the way of eleai-ing the ground and verifying hypothesis, and it is now plain that in radium we have before us matter in process of transformation, spontaneously, and at certain fixed and uniform dates! This extraordinary substance* ie slowly disintegrating or breaking down its own atonno system, and the products of the transformations in turn give rise to other forms. Already eight different substances have been traced in their successive stages of transition, and it is now known that polonium, one of the radio-active substances discovered by Madame Curie, is merely an intermediate form of radium. One interesting conclusion to which recent investigations have been led is that radium must itself be the product of come other substance now existing, for radium gives off its atoms so rapidly that without some constant source of supply the earth's slock would Jong since .have been transformed into inert matter. The evidence so far available points to uranium as the present substance from which radium is derived, for they are found always in the same fixed proportions in the combinations in which ihey occur. Moreover, puro uranium, without any trace of radium in it, has been found after a time to transform itself into radium.

Is it, then, not possible, said the intera iewcr, io stimulate the action of uranium— in fact, to encourage the growth of radium trom uranium by artificial means? "No," was the reply, " because' here we nave to do not with a molecular but an atomic process. No known chemical or physical means can affect those atomic changes. Uranium apparently transforms itsolf into radium at a slow rate. A given bulk will be half transformed in a thousand million (1,000.000,000) years, and the transformation, as I have said, is quite spontaneous. A great many interesting facts have been incidentally discovered about the.=e changes. You know that radium gives off three various kinds of radiations or atomic discharges, one" of which corresponds to the Rontgen ray. Some of the light transition forma through which radiunt passes give off only one or two of those discharges, and some appear to give off nothing, yet the elftects of their radio activity are seen in the next transition form through which the substance passes." What is the scientific importance of this? " Well." said the Professor, "we have here, as I said, matter in proocss of disintegiation and transformation before our eyes, an altogether unprecedented les=on in the constitution and development ot material things. As to any inference that can be drawn from what we have discovered we can suggest that the heat of the earth,

conceivably also that of the sun, may be due to ladium. The whole study is still in its infancy ; but, no," (this in reply to a question) " I cannot see any practical use to which it can be put at the piesent time." What about the alleged cancer cure with the radium ray? " All that I can say is that, though the evidence so far looks promising, it is not conclusive. In the Vienna cases, for instance, there was nothing to show that, even if the maligant growth was checked for the time, it would not recur. Experiments would have to extend over a wide area for a long* time before they could be regarded as final."

A remark made by the Professor as to the amount of work done in Montreal in the way of scientific research led to a question as to the nature of university work in Canada.

Professor Rutherford observed that sfre&fc importance was now attached to scientific and technical work of all sorts in connection with secondary and university training in. Canada, but he was not prepared to admit that our secondary school system compared unfavourably with the Canadian system. Professor Rutherford, it will be remembered received his own secondary education and his early soientific training at Nelson College. Incidentally. Professor Rutherford suggested that the time had. perhaps, come for the New Zealand University to consider the question of establishing local .examiners fco examine for its degrees, as very tew - people outside the colony were aware that the examinations for the New Zealand decrees are set in England, and the possible gain in prestige was set off by the waefce of time and heavy expenditure. These comments closed a conversation which, though it was largely technical, can hardly fail to attract the attention of JSew Zealand readers, not only because of the fascinating scientific problems on which it bears, but becau&e of the personal interest attached to the work, and the career of, Verhaps. the most distinguished and successful of all the graduates on whom the JSew Zealand University has conferred its degrees.