ATOMS SPLIT DAILY.

Waikato Times, Volume 112, Issue 18808, 2 December 1932, Page 8

ATOMS SPLIT DAILY.

A MAGICIAN AT WORK. SEEKING SECRETS OF MATTER (From a Correspondent.) CAMBRIDGE, England, Oct, 22,

If you arc given to fancies you will no doubt have known that halfexpectation, when you have knocked at an 'unfamiliar door, of being admitted to a magic chamber where you will see unveiled at last mysteries that have Iroubled the world for a long age.‘ I had that feeling again to-day when I found myself outside a door in the Cavendish Laboratory, a place, which has become sacred to scientists all the world over.

I passed inco a lofty room, dimly lit and Tilled with ghostly presences of glass. There were towering to the ceiling such tubes of glass as might form part of the apparatus used by experimenting giants.

In a corner, near the door, a young man wearing spectacles sat at a small table, or bench, his right hand on an electric switch. 1 Astounding Feat. For all his easy air and friendly look, I knew him for what he really was—a magician engaged in the working of wonders. That is to say, he was Dr. E. T. S. Walton, who, with Dr. F. D. Cockroft, performed, a few months ago, the astounding feat of splitting the atom. “ Well, Dr. Walton," said I, summoning courage, "and what is happening to the atom now'?” He smiled faintly. “ Well," he said, "we are continuing our work in directions indicated by the result of our research.”

He told me, in tones as casual as those of a man discussing the most ordinary matter in the world, something of the great search at the laboratory for the inmost secrets of matter. Commonplace Marvel. He explained that the search was for more and more knowledge of the nucleus of the atom—-the atom of that rare metal lithium, and of many other elements. To the seekers the marvel of the split atom has now become commonplace; atoms are split daily at the laboratory in the ordinary course of the continued experiments.

I asked Dr. Walton how long these experiments might go on in the directions sought. “Three or four years,” tie replied. He smiled, and returned to his strange switchboard.