RADIUM’S VAST ENERGY.

Taihape Daily Times, 14 August 1919, Page 5

RADIUM’S VAST ENERGY.

SUBSTITUTE POE FUEL. EXHAUSTION OF COAL BEDS. POSSIBILITIES OF FUTUEE. . The question of the supply of fuel when the world’s coal beds are exhausted, was discussed by Professor G. Owen, in the course of his lecture on “Eadium” at St. Andrew’s Hall, Auckland, on Monday evening. He said r the most important and arresting lesson to be drawn from the fact of radio-acti-vity, was (hat radium had revealed that power or energy beyond our dreams was stored, locked up, in the material atoms, and the discovery of this ultra-atomic marked a new age in the history of the understanding of the universe. This was a matter of vital importance to the human race. We lived by power, by energy. Our machinery was driven by the energy of coal, but our coal beds wou'l be exhausted at no very distant dole. Whence shall we then draw our energy to carry on the industry of the world? asked the lecturer. “Can wc harness the tides, or the sun’s heat, or the energy of waterfalls,’ ’ he proceeded. “Much can be done in this direction, no, doubt, but a grain of radium conrains as much intra-atomic energy as can be obtained ordinarily by the combustion of several tons of coal, and there is every possible reason for believing that what is true of radium is true of matter in all its forms. In other word, a stone picked up on the roadside (contains within. Its 1 .atoms enough energy to light the whole of Auckland for a week, or to drive the Niagara across flic Pacific. Here, therefore, is power unlimited almost within our grasp. Can. wo unlock it? So far - all attempts have failed, but the day will come when Man Avill discover the key and it will be the most stupendous discovery ever made.’’

The lecturer 'concluded his reference to the subject by quoting the words of Professor Soddy, as follows; “A race which could transmute matter would have little need to earn its bread by the sweat of its brow. If wo can judge from what our engineers have accomplished with comparatively rcsllricteff supplies of energy, such a race would transform a desert continent, thaw the frozen Poles, and make tlio whole world one smiling garden of Eden. By those achievements of experimental science, man’s inheritance has boon increased, his aspirations uplifted, and his destiny ennobled to an extent beyond our power to foretell. It is a legitimate aspiration to believe that one day ho will attain the power to regulate for his own purposes the primary fountains of energy which Nature now so jealously conserves for die future. The fulfilment of this aspiration is. no doubt, far off. but the possibility alters somewhat the relations of man to his own environment, ..,,,1 •( cpgnpv of its own to the actualities of existence.”