DISCOVERIES IN SCIENCE.

Shannon News, 17 October 1924, Page 4

DISCOVERIES IN SCIENCE.

STRUCTURE OF MATTER. THE FUNCTION OF ATOMS. TORONTO, August 9. Sir Ernest Ruthexrora, director of the Cavendish laboratory at Cambridge University, and formerly of New Zealand, addressed the Toronto Rotary Club to-day. He said that to Canada belonged the credit,, of being the country -where me foundations were' laid to discoveries wlych were now revolutionising the theories of chemistry and physics in all parts of the world. These discoveries would exert a great effect on industrial life.

' Sir Ernest described early experiments at the McGill University. Montreal. He said it was in this Dominion that the first experiments in modern ideas of the structure of mauer were carried out,, and the credit belonged in some measure to Canada. The result had been a veritable scientific revolution, and the work had only bee'n commenced.

"The structure of every inanimate object—gold, wood, and the air we breathe —depends on the atoms of which ,it is formed," conotinued Sir Ernestl "All to begin with were formed of the same substance." He explained the discovery that these atomic arrangements would enable man to gain a much greater degree ; of control over the earth. Regarding his own theory of the structure of the atom he said that if an atom were the size of a house the research worker would find at its centre a core the size->of a man's fist Which controlled the arrangement of the whole. The part of an atom outside this core was made up of a number of electrons revolving about the centre and governed by it, as the sun governs the movements of the planets. The core itself was made up of a number of infinitesimal particles, each 200 times heavier than an v and charged with electricity. *•

The/ small particles going to make up this, core were arranged in different ways. Practically speaking the key to the whole of science lay hidden in the arrangement of this minute core "to each atom.