THE WORLD OF SCIENCE

Waikato Times, Volume 94, Issue 14723, 13 August 1921, Page 10 (Supplement)

THE WORLD OF SCIENCE

INSIDE THE ATOM. TREMENDOUS DIFFICULTIES PAC- « INO INVESTIGATORS. The general ’public has merely a vague idea that a clever Polish-French lady was lucky enough to drop across radium in ISOS. The fact is, of course, that Professor Curie and his wife were systematically following out the work of their predecessors. For half a century physicists had been on the track of some deep secret of Nature of which they caught occasional glimpses. But the difficulties were tremendous. Let us put it in this way (says John o' London’s Weekly). Take the dot over Ihe letter “i” as it is printed on this page. We know —we knew before 1808—that several million atoms of matter could be accommodated in a single line, shoulder to shoulder, so to speak, across Ihe breadth of that tiny spot of ink! What the physicists and chemists were trying to do was to gel inside one of these extraordinary minute atoms and see what it was rr adc of. Sir Thomas J. Thompson, Cavendish professor of experimental physics at Cambridge, was the first to do so. The discovery did not depend so exclusively on radium as people imagine. Long before 1898 Sir W. Crookes had, though no one knew it, got the same phenomena by discharging electricity through little tubes of rare gas. Thompson was following this up, and the new discovery of radium gave the clue. These tiny atoms of matter were breaking up into particles which were far more minute. How could anyone even make a mental picture of such inconceivable small things? Sir J. J. Thompson did not merely get a mental picture of them. He made them register themselves on photographs. He weighed them, measured them, ascertained their speed, and gave the world a wonderful suggestion of how they lived within the tiny dimensions of an atom. He directed thin streams of them on to a target which lit up as each particle struck it. He made them trace luminous paths through artificial fogs, so that they could be photographed. He found and proved that the smallest of these particles—“corpuscles,” he called them, though they are now known as “electrons”—were so minute that, to put it in his own recent words, “their linear dimensions are only about one hundredth thousandth part of those atoms;” and it would take hundreds of millions of atoms in a continuous line to stretch across the face of a penny.

Very interesting, you may say, but c’ccs it out any ice? You may remember, on reflection, that this question was asked, rather disdainfully, when scientific men made the researches which led to the utilisation of gas, steam or electricity. In this case there is an even greater possibility. The electrons are shot out of the atoms of matter at a speed which may reach, in good conditions, 100,000 miles a second. Here is locked up in the atoms all kinds of matter energy beyond all our dreams. The energy contained in a farthing is equal to 80,000. horse-power. There is more energy in the atoms of a square foot of coal than we shall get in the ordinary W’ay out of all the coal in Britain. Whether or no we shall succeed in tapping this energy’ remains to be seen. In any case, we have made a prodigious stride in the understanding of Nature, which, is the first condition of our being able to develop its sphlidid resources. The atoms of all kinds of matter are little worlds of these infinitesimal electrons —magazines of extraordinary energy. Every arc lamp is shooting them out at a prodigious speed. The sun is pouring them out in floods. They are “atoms of electricity”; and it may be said in a sense that the whole material world is made up of electricity. It is something, at least, to have mastered the nature of that wonderful force. Sir J. J. Thompson’s first suggestion of the way in which these electrons are held together in 'bo atom may give place to others, Inn ibe substance of his brilliant work remains. “ISOTOPES.” At a meeting of the chemical section of the Philosophical Society, at Wellington, Professor B. Marsdcn delivered a paper on “Isotopes.” The professor showed how recent research had discovered that the atoms of many of the common chemical elements consisted of more than one species; the species differing from one another in mass, but not in chemical properties. Ibis remarkable discovery was shown to have been made in the first place by a study of the products of change of radio-active elements. Lead was found to be the end product of a long scries of radio-active changes, and the lend obtained in this manner differed from common lead only in atomic weight. This and similar results load to the formulation of Ibe principle of “Isotopes" by Coddy and his co-workers. The professor dealt at length with the modern nucleus theory of the atom, and showed how chemical properties could be accounted for by this means. Me showed how the properties, of an element were delermined solely by the excess of positive -over negative changes ir. the atomic nucleus. Dealing particularly with the clement chlorine, lie related how Moseley’s X-ray spectra proved the positive nucleus charge of this clement to be seventeen, he showed how this could be accounted for on more than one arrangement of electronic charges. He, thus showed Hint, in the case of chlorine the existence of isotopes was possible. SHIPS IN THE SKY. A remarkable story of a sea phenomenon was told by the chaplain of the Deal Missions to Seamen motorlaunch, recently, reports a London paper. “After leaving the South Goodwin lightship this morning,” he said, “we ran into a slight haze. Suddenly wc observed the distinct outline of several sailing ships and one large «learner dearly- denieled in the sky. The entire bulls of the vessels, masts, sails, and funnels were visible, and were eliding along as vividly as though on (lie surface. The extraordinary sight—phenomenon mirage, or phantom ships—lasted for fully five minutes, disappearing as we ran into clearer weather. We. looked around, but could not discover the real ships.” X-RAY HEROES. The commill.ee of Iho Carnegie Foundation met in Paris recently, under Ihc presidency of M. Emile Louhcl, Ihe fcnn-T' President, and made the following awards - Cold modal lo Dr. Inffoit, the famous radiid""ial, who lias had several lingers amputated as the resull of disease coni raided in the course of his X-ray experiments. i11.,1d medal and CdOOil to M. Vail1, nl. head if the X-cav laboratory at I,lm S dtp -tin■■■ere Hospital. who has continued Ids work in .spite of losing his left mu. Gold tii-da I |,I lh- lain Dr. t.eray. Who lied nil .March ’M from burns mn ■ I raid >d durbpj- Ids wnrking on radio-