POWER FROM ACHES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 65, 31 October 1911, Page 8

POWER FROM ACHES.

HARNESSING THE ATOM

EXPERIMENTS WITH RADIUM

From every pound ol' coal burnt in an engine there is left over a pound of ashes and gas. Most of the gas escapes, the ashes are thrown away, or made into asphalt, perhaps, or' rolled into tennis courts. Rut in that pound of so-called dead stuff there stdl remains far more energy than was ever goo out of the coal.*To use tiiat energy would bo to harness a new force, an enormous force. If engineer could control it they could do almost anything; sin’ft mountains bodily, dig huge canals in no time, drive unheard-of engines at tremendous speeds, lire bullets up ihto the moon, perhaps, if that were worth our while. It would not matter then if all tiie coalfields in the world were exhausted. Shall wc ever Jie able to use this power ? asks the “Sydney Daily Telegraph.” Science says yes; possibly, though so far all attempts to got hold of it have failed. It is | experiments with radium that have made plain its existence, and further experiments may, perhaps, show how to get at it and control it. At the Sydney University, now, investigations arc being made along these lines. Their main object is just* research for its own sake, but anything may come of them. The experimenters arc J)r. Madsen, lecturer in electrical engineering, and Mr Burn, 8.E., B.Sc. The radium, without which the experiments could not have been made, has been generously provided by a wellknown Sydney' gentleman. THE POWER IN THE ATOM. This new power lies all about us, if wo could only' get at it. It is hidden in the particles of wood and stone and ash and air, in tramcars and matchboxes and policemen’s bools -r-in everything. in this way: If you could split up any of tiicse tilings into the tiniest possible particles, much smaller than can bo seen with tiie most powerful microscope you would come, in the end, so scientists think, to what are called atoms. Of course the atom of gold would be different from the atom of load, and so on. No one has ever seen these things; their existence has been calculated. But in the last ten years science has discovered that every tiniest atom—and thousands of them could rest upon a pin’s point—is loaded with energy and all alive with movement, It is like a hive of bees, or, bettor, a solar system, with some kind of a central sun, and round it revolving, like planets, at enormous speeds, still tinier particles, called electrons. It is according to the number and arrangement of these electrons that one atom ,is load, another gold, and so on. What an electron is, science lias l.a.'dly made up its mind, but it- may be taken to be a little piece of matter, together with a charge of electricity'. Now the atoms in everything are continually tending to break up. One might put it that some of the bees are continually wandering off from tiie atom-hive, or that some of the tiny' electron planets are continually breaking loose from their attraction towards the centre of the atom, r« tl becoming electVon-com-ats ,which may shoot about anyhow. In most substances this breaking up if the atoms is too slow and too small to bo noticed by r the most delicate instruments, but with one or two substances, such as radium, the breaking up is evident. WHAT HAPPENS TO RADIUM. Since the radium atoms are breaking up faster than any other kind, it was in radium that Dus change was noticed first. Radium breaks iij oy giving out rays—three kinds of rays, alpha, beta, and gamma, they are called. Everyone knows limy some of those rays will cure ulcers and birthmarks, though they now and then, in careless hands, cause trouble on their own account. And everyone knows that even a tiny piece of radium will go on pouring out ray's for thousands of years before it squanders all its force and substance and disappears. If y’ou look at a speck of radium in the dark you can see the particles, the collections of tiny solar systems, which it contains, all tearing about like shoals of mad flreilies. And you can imagine the enormous energy' that must be contained in them. The alpha rays are atoms of a rare element, helium, all electrically' charged. The beta rays arc made up of the still tinier particles, the electrons, all of which are again electrically charged, and which travel at an enormous speed. The gamma rays may be citner of two things. Tney may be cither waves—waves, that is, in a substance infinitely thinner than water or air, like the waves that aro used in wireless—or they may also bo electrons, the 'effect of whose charges has been neutralised. These gamma rays are probably the same as the X-rays. The particles of which they arc made up are like shrapnel, an electron with a second charged body revolving round it, as the moon does round the earth, the place of gravitation between earth iml /the moon being taken by the electrical attraction between the two charged bodies. If these rays strike infetal they' may break up and lly ipart like shrapnel. This is the theory of Professor Bragg, formerly' of the Adelaide University', and now professor of physics at the University of Leeds. EXPLORING THE ATOM.

The attempts which have been made to get hold ol' and control the energy contained in tiie atoms have failed, so far, simply because we don't know enough about the mechanism of tho atom. It is in this part of the work that experiments are being made at the University, and in winch tiie radium rays aro being used. What is wanted is a more definite idea of how the pin-point solar, system contained in each atom works. It can't be handled, or weighed, or looked at, even, it is so small. Suppose there was some enormous Being, standing away in space, and to whom our whole solar system seemed as small as the atom seems to us. How could he get some general idea of our solar system and of the forces which hold it together? One way would be to fire projectiles—comets, say—through that system, and nieasure how their courses had boon deflected when they came out on tho other side. He could get some sort of an idea from that. Well, that is the sort of thing.that is being done with the atoms at the University. The .beta, rays of radium—high to pass through the atoms of various speed electrons, that is—are allowed substances. On their way these projectiles, or clcctrou-comcts, smash up against the electron-planets in the atoms of tho various substances. Their courses are altered, they fly out in all directions, and they chi]) nil", as it were, parts of the systems they pass j through, driving some of the electrons out of their regular courses round tho attracting force in the centre of such atom. On the other side of the atoms through which the beta, rays aro sent, arrangements are made to receive them after their journey, and to find what lias happened to thorn. They arc allowed to pass through some gas—air is the gas used, as a 'matter of fact. The chips which they knock olf from

the gas atoms in tiiis second passage arc collected electrically, and their effects can easily' be measured. It is like the ricochet of a bullet—much more easy' to see than the bullet itself. RESEARCH’S AIM AND VALUE. In all this, the subject is more interesting than the results, so far, are valuable. But then immediately valuable results are not what the research student aims at. Ho follows the research for its own sake; the chance of profit is too far ahead. But though research in this lino and other linos may lie carried on for any number of years without yielding anything of practical or commencial value, without research we should never have had the Rontgen rays, or radium, or wireless telegraphy, and the many other valuable things. And a discovery of practical value may turn up at any' moment. So there is the highest possible value in “mere research.” It is urged, also, that the University' is the best place for it, because there, and there only, is the research student in close touch with the departments of physics, mathematics, chemistry, and so on, with their apparatus and laboratories. Moreover, lie is there in touch with such schools as those of medicine and agriculture, so that ho is in a position to know along what lines knowledge is needed.