RADIUM'S VAST ENERGY.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 August 1919, Page 12

RADIUM'S VAST ENERGY.

SUBSTITUTE FOR FUEL EXHAUSTION QE COAL BEDS. The question of the supply of fuel when the world's coal hods are exhausted, was discussed by Professor 0. Owen, in the course of a lecture on "Radium" at Aucklnnd recently. He said the most important and arresting lesson to be drawn from the fact of radio-activity, was that radium had revealed that power or'energy beyond our dreams was stored, locked up, in ■ the material atoms, and the discovery of this intraatomic energy 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. The food we ate was due to solar energy, Our machinery was driven by the energy of coal, but our coal bcdi would be exhausted at no very distant date. Whence shall we then draw our energy to carry on the industry of the world, asked the lecturer. "Can we harness the tides, or the sun's heat, or the energy of waterfalls," he proceeded. "Much can bo done in this direction, no doubt, but a grain of radium contains as much intra-atomie 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 words, a stone picked up on the roadside contains within its atoms. enough energy to light the whole of .Aucklnnd for a week,, or to dri/e the Niagara across the Pacific. Here, thcrefore7 is power unlimited al' most within our (i'<">P- Can we unlock it? So far all attempts have faili ed, but the day will come when Man will 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 :—r"A race •which could transmute matter would have little need to earn its bread by the sweat of its brow. If we ean judge from what our engineers have accomplished with comparatively restricted supplies o,f energy, such a race would transform' a desert continent, thaw the frozen Poles, and make the whole world one smiling garden of Eden. By these achievements" of experimental science man's inheritance has been 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 he will attain the power* to regulate l for his own purposes the primary fountains of energy which Nature now so zealously conserves for the • future. The fulillment of this aspiration is, no doubt, far off, but the possibility alters somewhat the relation of man to his environment, and adds a dignity of its own to »th,e actualities of existence."