Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/46

42 gaseous emanation from radium. The conclusion therefore followed that in all probability these bodies are gases of the argon group, the atomic weight of which, and consequently the density, is very high; indeed, several observers, by means of experiments on the rate of diffusion of the gas from radium, believe it to have a density of approximately 100, referred to the hydrogen standard. This conclusion has been confirmed by the mapping of the spectrum of the radium emanation, which is similar in general character to the spectra of the inactive gases, consisting of a number of well-defined, clearly cut brilliant lines, standing out from a black background. The volume of the gas produced spontaneously from a given weight of radium bromide in a given time has been measured; and it was incidentally shown that this gas obeys Boyle's law of pressures. The amount of gas thus collected and measured, however, was very minute; the total quantity was about the forty-thousandth of a cubic centimeter.

Having noticed that those minerals which consist of compounds of uranium and thorium contain helium, Rutherford and Soddy made the suggestion that it might not be impossible that helium is the product of the spontaneous change of the emanation; and Soddy and I were able to show that this is actually the case. For, first, when a quantity of a radium salt which has been prepared for some time is dissolved in water, the occluded helium is expelled, and can be recognized by means of its spectrum; further, the fresh emanation shows no helium spectrum, but after a few days the spectrum of helium begins to appear, proving that a spontaneous change is in progress; and last, as the emanation disappears its volume decreases to zero; and on heating the capillary glass tube which contained it, helium is driven out from the glass walls, into which its molecules had been imbedded in volume equal to three and a half times that of the emanation. The α-rays, as foreshadowed by Rutherford and Soddy, consist of helium particles.

All these facts substantiate the theory, devised by Rutherford and Soddy, that the radium atom is capable of disintegration, one of the products being a gas, which itself undergoes further disintegration, forming helium as one of its products. Up till now, the sheet anchor of the chemists has been the atom. But the atom itself appears to be complex, and to be capable of decomposition. It is true that only in the case of a very few elements, and these of high atomic weight, has this been proved. But even radium, the element which has by far the most rapid rate of disintegration, has a comparatively long life; the period of half-change of any given mass of radium is approximately 1,100 years. The rate of change of the other elements is incomparably slower. This change, too, at least in the case of radium, and its emanation, and presumably also in the case of other elements, is attended with an enormous loss of energy. It is easy to calculate from heat measurements (and independent and concordant measurements have been made) that one pound of emanation is capable of parting with