NEW DISCOVERY

Hokitika Guardian, 1 March 1932, Page 5

NEW DISCOVERY

SCIENTISTS EXCITED. TREMENDOUS PENTRATIVE POWER. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) LONDON, Feb. 28. The “Manchester Guardian ” announces the discovery, which it is believed will excite the scientific world, which is comparable to the discovery of tlie electron, proton and Roentgen Ray.

Air James Chadwick, a radio-activity research worker at the Cavendish .Laboratory, Cambridge, Ins discovered one of toe ultimate particles in nature and the smallest particle, which, being the proton and electron bound together, does not carry an electric charge, for which lie named it “neutron.” The Roentgen Rays throw shadows of subjects, deeply embedded in the living body, Neutrons have as particles, hitherto unknown powers of penetration. A neutron ejected from a nucleus of .Beryllium atoms will penetrate many feet of lead and through a mile of air. Yet it weighs only two-hundred thousand-millionth of an ounce.

J’fie difference in the behaviour of neutrons from all other known ultimate particles, has given the experimental physicists a new weapon. Just as the Roentgen Rays permitted fresh experiments, so should neutrons. But tile practical application has yet to be made, Neutrons are fundamentally Important in astronomy and the evolution of the universe, representing the first step in the evolution of matter from the primeval electrons and protons. The neutron is lialf-way between electricity and helium. It is an embryonic form of ordinary matter growing but not yet born.

Lord Rutherford describes the discovery as possibly the greatest since the artificial disintegration of the atom, and says it lias already afforded a number of examples of unexpected types of atomic disintegration, and offers a promising means of approach to a number of important problems.