NITROGEN A COMPOUND

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 262, 1 August 1919, Page 7

NITROGEN A COMPOUND

SIR ERNEST RUTHERFORD'S GREAT

DISCOVERY

"A VERY BIG THING"

The London correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian" had a chat recently with "a high scientific authority" about Sir Ernest Rutherford's latest discovery. Hn sai.d that it was extremely interestins and extremely important, but it was not a complete surprise nowadays that an acknowledged element, or atom, should bo proved after all to be no element, and to be divisible. It was the kind of thinpr that chemists and physicists were looking forward to. But though it was not a complete surprise, like the discovery of the Eontzen rays, the greatness of the discovery must not bo minimised. . . '. The measure of the importance of the discovery is, that it fs only the second, time that an acknowledged element has been proved to he. no element. Sir William Hamsay .proved that tho element radium was, in fact, two elements—helium and a thins not understood called radium emanation. That wao the first demonstration of the kind. Now Sir Ernest Rutherford has dissolved the element nitrogen into two other known elements, Mium and hydrogen. It is not a revolution in chemistry and physics,! but it is ;v very bis thing. Sir Ernret Rutherford himself gave "onie details in the course of a lecture on "Atomic Projectiles and Their Collisions with Light .Atoms." fn the course of his lecture Sir Ernest said the discovery of radio-activity had not only thrown a flood of light (in tho transformation of radio-active atoms, but had provided us with the most powerful natural nancies for probing the inner structure of the atoms of all the elements.- The swift alpha particles and high-speed electrons ejected from radio- ■ nntive bodies were by far the most concentrated sources (f energy known to science. In consamience' of its great pnerev of motion the charged particle was able to penetrate- deeply into the structure of all atoms before it was defected or turned kck, and from' tae Ktaidv of the deflection of the path of the nnrticlo they were able to obtain imuortant evidence on the strength, and distribution of the electric fields near the centre or nuckns of the atom. He thought he had obtained some evidence of the disruption of atoms by the im-' nact of the swift ilpha-particles shot out bv radium C.

When one of these alpha-particles hits the- nucleus of a light atom like that of hydrogen in a. head-on collision, the atom is pushed 0:1 a certain distance more or less in the line of motion of the particle. A heavier atom, like that of nitrogen, is'nut pushed so far; yet when the experiment is tried on nitroeen a few atoms o.re found that go as far;as hydrogen atoms, and, in fact, appear to bo hydrogen atoms. The possibility that the hydrogen comes ■ from external sources eeems to be disproved bv the precautions taken, and in that case it must come from the nitrogen. The lecturer was therefore led to the speculation that the nucleus of the nitrocen atom io made up of three atoms of helium and two of hydrogen, and that the hydrogen which made its appearance in his experiments was sent off the nucleus of the nitrogen atom by the impact of the alphu-pnrticlo.