MODERN ALCHEMISTS

Hokitika Guardian, 22 April 1933, Page 7

MODERN ALCHEMISTS

LECTURE BY LORD RUTHERFORD.

LONDON, April 13

Lord Rutherford, speaking- at tin ■ Royal institution on the “Det-ectioi ami Production of Swift Particle-.-/ said that for five years work had been done 011 charged particles at higl speed with the aim of bombarding matter and transmuting it. For tha. reason it had been justly said that tli* men who wore working with them high-speed particles wore the rnodon alchemists. The general method wato “speed up” charged particles ii highly exhausted vacua by means of r .''(•tolerating potential. In- the United States an entirely novel form of generator, needing no transformer 01 rectifier, was in course of construe tion, and efforts were being made tx reach a potential of 10,000,000 volt* But .particles, observed Lord Rutherford, had not only to he sireded up they had to he detected. He demon Xrated to the audience four method by which charged particles could he detected and counted. Their kicks or p. -string electrometer could te photographed ; they could be heard through a loud-speaker a® a- persistent patter like machine-gun fire on a small scalethey could he detected by flashes of light in ft thyrantron, one for every particle: and—“a lazy method,” observed Lord Rutherford—they could be counted by the revolutions of u cyclometer.