MIRACLE OF THE ATOM

Hokitika Guardian, 7 November 1923, Page 3

MIRACLE OF THE ATOM

ITS USE IN WAR. LONDON. September ]2. Mr Bertrand Russell’s book ‘The A.B.C. of Atoms.” is a noteworthy achievement, ft explains in the simplest possible language, with the minimum ef mathematics, tile latest theories about the atom. Ii is so written that it will interest the general reader and make plain to him some of the strangest phenomena of our iinivei.se. It contains much that is new and is full of striking comparisons and generalisations, as we should expect from tin- reputation of Its. author.

due nt the most astonishing things about the processes that take place in atoms, -ays Mr Russell, is that they seem to he liable to sudden discontinuities. sudden jumps from one state "I continuous motion to another. The motion ef an electron round its nucleus seems to be like that- of a Ilea, which crawls for a while and then hops. Not le-s startling perhaps i- it to learn that the motions of the heavenly hollies mav he of the same irregular kind. Thus Mr lDis-el considers that there is a possibility that the old laws which represent motion as a smooth. ( onl l nnous process may tie only statistical averages, and that, when we come down to a suHieiently minute scale, everything proceeds by jumps, like a kincma. which produces a misleading appearance of continuous motion by means of a succession of separate pictures.

Ail atom itself eousists like the solar system "I a number of planets moving around a central body 'ailed "electrons” and Hi" central li (iv a "nucleus.” But the planets are mu attached a> firmly to the central body they ar‘‘ in the solar system. An atom Hillers from the solar system by the fad that, it is not graviation that makes the electrons go round Hi" nucleus, but electricity. ' WHAT ELECTRICITY IS. A- for electrieity it is not a thing like Sr Raul’s Cathedra! : it is a way tilings helmvc. It i- not red paint, a substance which can he p-ut on to the elect roll and taken ell again: it is merely a convenient' name for certain phyThere are dillieult i,"- and prodigious difliv-il 11i<"S ill the newest science. More than ever is it true that “all things end in mystery.” In his concluding pages Mr Russell even suggests that every apparent law ot natuie which strike- us as reasonable may not he a law of mil lire, lull a i oncculed ( oiiered ,m to nature by our love of what we in our arrogance, choose to consider rational. A- f, : r I lie praetiial possibilities which mav result Irom a deeper knowledge ni the at-un. the author thinks that "it will ultimately he used tor making more deadly explosive- and projectiles than anv .vet invented” a pretty prospect !