LIGHTNING HARNESSED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 828, 23 November 1929, Page 29

LIGHTNING HARNESSED

: . CABLE SLUNG ACROSS SWISS MOUNTAIN PEAKS TO ATTACK ATOM ■ | Press dispatches have reported that German engineers are trying to explode the atom in the mountains of | Switzerland. llecenUy I met these engineers and they told me how they are i trying to do it. by harnessing the | lightning, says a writer in a Canadian | j exchange. I All three are from licrlin Univer- 1 sity. Dr. 1 . Lange is only fiS, and Ills I j assistants, A. Brasch and C. Urban, ! i are younger. They went to Generoso, not far from Geneva, took over a hotel on the moun- - tain-side, and turned it into a labora- i lory. In a small, metal, lightning- ] pi oof cabin they put measuring instru- \ ; meats and connected them with bells | j at their bedside so that even during I • tile u ’Sht if a good storm broke they I ; would be awakened. 1,, Ac, ', oss two Peaks they slung a cable j :On the metal cabin tliev fixed a B * tw ?°V h,! c:i * blt: and pointer! I b Pai ks were to leap. UhJv? y did lei,p! Hunger and longer ! LLi 1,0 aa tUo Pointer was moved ' , 1 a Tr y ’ uutil th< W had leaping lightning 15 leet long. I WD, , Jlois ° as ‘ho' electricity bolt jumped across was terrific “This work certainly- is terrifying,” said Herr Ltasch to me, “and the fact that we ate dealing with the unknown makes it more dangerous.” So lightning was being harnessed, i he voltages shown on the measuring "f.',' u '!' ents « rew greater and greater until they were drawing from the air power greater than any achieved by engineers. “Our first task is to harness the lightmng, or the electricity in the air, said Dr. Lange. “There' is always electricity floating in the air. but during storms the potential is much higher. \i e chose Generoso, as the place, where there are most storms. AVe have now brought down 60,000 volts, and shown that there is electricity in the air to do all our work u only we can bring it. down easily and safely. This is after two vears’ ;"ork. As soon as we have reached 100,000 volts we propose lo use the power to break the atom.” If was in Berlin University that Dr Lange told me this. He a'nd Herr Brasch had come there to superinterfd the building of a great tube in which they were to submit the atom to the greatest, force man has ever obliged it to face. "The atom” is talked about, but ' ot course everything is built up of i atoms of different.kinds. Dr. Lange' i told me his plan was to introduce a I small quantity of gas in a tube and i then put all the electric force he could i gather from the air at stormy Gener- \ oso across the tube, and subject tbe i atoms of the gas to it. That is what he is doing now. But S do not expect the world to shake. Writers a few years ago told of ' immense power stored in the atom and 1 awaiting to be released. When Dr. j Wall, of Sheffield University said lie I thought he could split the atom, news- j papermen came from wide and far to I see tile experiment. American newspapermen had taxis waiting outside the university so they could rush to the cable office and announce that the world had been destroyed. Blit the • atom did not yield—then. Not long afterward I was in Leeds I 1.. ni\ ersity and saw an experiment ! which struck me as being novel. I | lushed to Professor R. Whiddington ' the young fellow of the Royal Society! who is head of tile physics depart- I meiit there. “Aren't you splitting the atom?” I said I. "A es,” said he, "we are split-j ting it every day.” And the world had not come to an end. But the world I was surprised by the news. The truth is that the atom is bound j ogetiter with a force which is tre- i nendous, considering the size of the i itoni, but there is no fear of that force ! loing much harm. That is the truth 1 ibout the “mighty atom." Some try to say now that the mvs- . erious and terrifying force is further j a Hie atom—in the nucleus. Here, as ; ar as ordinary people will be af- i ected, is another myth. Dr. Lange is splitting the atom to rive his new-found power work to do. ; The fact that we shall submit it to I rreater force than it has ever known ; tefore may tell us something new i ibout the atom,” he said. “In any ase, this is the next step. 1 decided t first that as soon as I had drawn I 00,000 volts down to the earth 1 ■ hould have proved that lightning j ould be harnessed.” ■