ATOMIC ENERGY

Waikato Independent, Volume XLIV, Issue 1188, 3 October 1945, Page 3

ATOMIC ENERGY

method of production EXPLAINED Tho atomic energy of one ounce of uranium would be equal to the force required to supply all the electric power for New Zealand for one week, said Dr. 0. D. Costello, Hastings, addressing- the Hawke’s Bay branch of the Royal Society of New Zealand. The amount of energy required for a week’s power supply for the Dominion could be derived from 20,000 tons of TNT, 7000 tons of coal, 76 pounds of radium or one ounce of uranium. 4 Actually, if all its energy could be utilised, one twentieth of an ounce of matter would provide the necessary force. * Dealing with the possible application of atomic power to industry, Dr. Costello said that large industrial units might be powered by this force and, for that matter, large aircraft, but he considered that its use in small units was a remote possibility. The day when one could buy a car fitted with sufficient atomic energy to run it for six years was so far distant as to be almost in the realms of fantasy. Scientists now knew that energy and mass were the same thing. Atoms were not indivisable units, but were complex system’s of energy. Some of them, such as uranium and radium, underwent spontaneous disintegration, giving out immense amounts of energy. All atoms "were known to be composed of energy in the form of a nucleus of protons and neutrons with electrons revolving about them at high speed. Different elements contained varying numbers of protons and neutrons in the nucleus. Hydrogen, for example, had two protons and two neutrons. It was now quite common for scientists to add neutrons to»atoms of some particular demerit with the result that it changed into another substance. In this way the dreams of the alchemist of transmuting metals was now an every day practice. Such ruptures of the atom were usually accompanied by the liberation of some of the immense amount of energy contained in the atom. The most interesting example to date Avas uranium, Avhich Avas embodied in the atomic bomb. The addition of neutron to the rarely found uranium 235, produced uranium 236. Uranium 236 Avas a most unstable substance, which immediately divided into two completely different elements, barium and kryptom, and an immense . amount of energy Avas liberated. This j Avas the principle of the atomic bomb, j Neutrons Avere added to atoms of uranium 235, and the atomic bomb exploded. Tremendous temperatures resulted, which not only destroyed matter, but stripped electrons from atoms. Immense amounts of X rays, ultra violet rays and light rays were generated.