ELECTRO=ATOMIC THEORY

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 1, 26 September 1907, Page 10

ELECTRO=ATOMIC THEORY

SIR 0. LODGE AND LORD KELVIN NEW WONDERS OF SCIENCE, The sections of the British Association got to work in real earnest on Augumst 2. The weather was ideal. People ccnhl get sbonfc with comfort, ami everyone seemed keen to learn the newest thing that science had to tei! them. In this sense. perhaps the feature of the days proceeding: was the quiet annoKiteraient by g-..-W. ltar.jsay, the "lather 11 of btliui,:. that he has succeeded ill obtainin;.; new I'lcv.ii 'its, or. at any rate, inert .-s. ton at which, is w-w. !!;i:n !(■: str,' v <v t:..c hi..: i'M;.!.i.--d aiai h:

by passing the emanations of radium into solutions of copper sulphato and copper nitrate and into water 110 had isolated lithium, neon, and argon, and possibly radium, but 01" the latter 110 was not sure, as tho substance might owe its presence to the glass used in the investigations. The substances be named were generated ia accordance with the amount of energy expended. This statement was received with some jubilatiou. THE ATOM. The constitution of the atom which formed tho subject 'of Professor ltutherford's paper and which took preccdcnce of Sir W. Ramsay's pronouncoment as to the emanations of radium, was listened to, in the Mathematical and Physical Science Sp'ction, by the flower of the scicntific world so far as physics and chemists? are concerned. Prof. Rutherford championed tha elcctrical theory of matter, and do clared that there seemed'to 110 a probagbility that cro long they would bo able to form an idea of what they might call the shape of tho electron, which had to do with the atom. Tho effectivo actions of tho electron all seemed confined to a small voluino, and tho electron itself was uniformly small iu' dimensions compared with tho atom of ordinary matter. Tho question of what was au electron lay somewhat outside the provinco of his address, but ho pointed out; in passing, that it was supposed to be a sUw ol strained other or a vortex ring.' Certain it was that the existence of the electrons 'had beau definitely proved, for they now know of a variety of methods by which they could produce them ■in enormous quantity. The election, he submitted, had come to stay—(cheers;—and tho ■view that it was a constituent of ail matter had been, greatly strengthened by recent investigations. ■ Electrons could bo liberated. from matter freely, but there was no evidence that the stability of tho atom was altered thereby. He asserted, however, that if they had electrons in motion, moving in closed orbits, theymust always.lose, energy by radiation, and probably broke up iirsome way. following each other round iu a ring, the disruption must be very slow. it was a remarkable circumstance, he said, that negative electricity was always 1 carried by the electron, but the positive was, probably, nothing moro than a cement which hel dtnc atom together. All attempts to prove the' existence of a small positive charge similar m character to that of the negative electron had' Isiled. Tho smallest particle in which they could obtam it had about one mass of the hydrogen atom, Hydrogen playing au important part in electrical conduction. 'I'll* muss of the positive mustJie greater than that of the negative it it at all. As to the mass of tha electron, Prof. Thompson concluded that thero was one in a hydrogea atom, whilst there .was not more tnaa 100 in an atom of lead, vrhich excluded the idea that the origin of the electron was electrical. tha spectrum analysis would not assist tnem by throwing light on tho cpmr position of the atom so far asU"" iwior structure was conccrucd, ttiß lidit coming from tlio outer pm> The spectrum determined the iiciallv detached electrons. Ho submitted that in, all probability there was an initial motion 111 tho atom itself, otherwise t-hc electrons would not travel with tho rapidity of light. Agile Scientific Skating. Sir Oliver Lodge complimented th» opener on tho agility with which b« had skated over this tremendous sub, ject. Ho had avowed lumselt !l champion of tho elcctrical theory of matter, and this as a working hypothesis was au admirablo guide 'experiment, and ho hoped it would loll" continuo to hold tho field and stimulate tho 'work of many laboratories. Iu some rospccts tho elcoerical theory of matter did not receive tho full approbation of Lord Kelvin. It was always hazardous, and at tho same time interesting, to differ in details from Lord Kelvin, although the latter had taken of lato to tho slaying of his ownchildren (laughter), •and sometimes they had to appeal from Lord Kelvin to Thompson and Tait. Lord Kelvin had discovered the kinetic explanation of elasticity and rigidity, but tho mark's of matter were inertia—which' could ( be explained electerically—radiation aud other was thrown into waves by pulsating electric charges, other boing a simple body incapable of compression—and instability. Th elno on which work should proceed was that tho atom became unstable, and something was thrown off, tho remaining particles rearranging thomselves insidc~tho atoni. H eexprossed a hops that tho younger physicists would confine themselves to researchos in connection with the positive electric chargo. . Sir W. Ramsay, as a chemist, took a different view from Professor R-ut-horford and Sir O. Lodgo. ,What was of nterest ,he thought, was not the ultimate constitution of the atom, but its proximate constitutidn. Tha "electrons" did • not interest the chemist, but the satellites' which wore detachable from the atom • whatever its constitution. Chemists wanted to he able to handle substances am,l to split them.

Mr F. Soddy objected to rejecting the ' best part of experimental ad- . vances which had been made on account of vague .indefinite theories which had been built on them. Hie • time had not yet come, for the complete representation of motter m forms of electricity. It was lrom chemistry as wel as from physics that tho ultimata decision of this ,• matter would come. Professor Larmor maintained tin right of physicists to .make hypotheses. Ho held that tho evolution oi oloctro-atoriic theory would have oxisted to-day in much the same state as it was 'if the electron had noyer , been heard of. New facts were fitting into old theories. Lord Kelvin and Radium. Lord Kelvin said that radium and the corps of radio active workers had opened their eyes to tilings never suspected by older experimenters, but they had not lost their old philosophy in consequence of this additions w.nch had been made to it. Radium sented one of tho most intercstm 1 " • questions as to static or potont.ai energy. Ha could not accept tho view as to whirls of electrons within the atom, which after losing a groat part of their energy, at last become so feeble that there was no_ kinetic energy to keep up the elasticity and hold the particles together, thougr they wero Still supposed to ha* one'rgv to shoot out with a speed ht-0 -.liort" of that'of light. Whatever ,"ior;;y there was must- be or the s ,lt!o

Sir AV. Ramsey then read aP-PW u:s vnviabilitv in the products'"flsukiiv from changes in r:i'.limn <'«'arun- ; inns. He had tried the on»"«K ,-.f radium on various f " iucing soinetuies lithium ,m ' ' ■ ■ : iioes neon, helium. Mil™ ' '!.• wa.? now siVirrlims: foAv|'ot.i<«M» :o iwnlain 0».« p>n!ts.