Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/26

20 Since the energy emitted from the radio-elements is for the most part kinetic in form, it is necessary to suppose that the α and β particles were originally in rapid motion in the atoms from which they are projected. The disintegration theory supposes that it is the atoms and not the molecules which break up. Such a view is necessary to explain the independence of the rate of disintegration of radioactive matter, of wide variations of temperature, and of the action of chemical and physical agents at our command. This must be conceded if the term atom is used in the ordinary chemical sense. It is, however, probable that the atoms of the radio-elements are in reality complex aggregates of known or unknown kinds of matter, which break up spontaneously. This aggregate behaves like an atom and can not be resolved into simpler forms by external chemical or physical agencies. It breaks up, however, spontaneously with an evolution of energy enormous compared with that released in ordinary chemical changes. This question will be considered later.

The disintegration theory assumes that a small fraction of the atoms break up in unit time, but no definite explanation is, as yet, forthcoming of the causes which lead to this explosive disruption of the atom. The experimental results are equally in agreement with the view that each atom contains within itself the potentiality of its final disruption, or with the view that the disintegration is precipitated by the action of some external cause, that may lead to the disintegration of the atom, in the same way that a detonator is necessary to start certain explosions. The energy set free is, however, not derived from the detonator, but from the substance on which it acts. There is another general view which may possibly lead to an explanation of atomic disruption. If the atom is supposed to consist of electrons or charged bodies in rapid motion, it tends to radiate energy in the form of electromagnetic waves. If an atom is to be permanently stable, the parts of the atom must be so arranged that there is no loss of energy by electromagnetic radiation. J. J. Thomson has investigated certain possible arrangements of electrons in an atom which radiate energy extremely slowly, but which ultimately must break up in consequence of the loss of internal energy. According to present views, it is not such a matter of surprise that atoms do break up as that atoms are so stable as they appear to be. This question of the causes of disintegration is fundamental and no adequate explanation has yet been put forward.

Rutherford and Soddy showed that the radioactivity was always accompanied by the appearance of new types of active matter which possessed physical and chemical properties distinct from the parent