Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/35

Rh observed an exactly opposite result. The volume diminished with time to a small fraction of its original value. This diminution of volume was due to the decomposition of the emanation into a non-gaseous type of matter deposited on the walls of the tube, and followed the law of decrease to be expected in such a case, namely, the volume decreased according to an exponential law with the time falling to half value in four days. The helium produced by the emanation must have been absorbed by the walls of the tube. Such a result is to be expected if the particle is a helium atom, for the a particle is projected with a velocity sufficient to bury itself in the glass to a depth of about 1/100 mm. This buried helium would probably be in part released by the heating of the tube, such as occurs with the strong electric discharge employed in the spectroscopic detection of helium. Ramsay and Soddy have examined the glass tubes in which the emanation had been confined for some time to see if the buried helium was released by heat. In some cases traces of helium were observed.

Accurate measurements of the value of e/m for the a particle and also an accurate determination of the relative volume of the emanation and the helium produced by it would probably definitely settle this fundamental question.

Certain very important consequences follow on the assumption that the α particle is, in all cases, an atom of helium. It has already been shown that the radio-elements are transformed into a succession of new substances, most of which in breaking up emit an a particle. On such a view, the atom of radium, thorium, uranium and actinium must be supposed to be built up in part of helium atoms. In radium, at least five products of the change emit particles, so that the radium atom must contain at least five atoms of helium. In a similar way, the atoms of actinium and thorium (or, if thorium itself be not radioactive, the atom of the active substance present in it) must be compounds of helium. These compounds of helium are not stable, but spontaneously break up into a succession of substances, with an evolution of helium, the disintegration taking place at a definite but different rate at each stage. Such compounds are sharply distinguished in their behavior from the molecular compounds known to chemistry. In the first place, the radioactive compounds disintegrate spontaneously and at a rate that is independent of the physical or chemical forces at our control. Changes of temperature, which exert such a marked influence in altering the rate of molecular reactions, are here almost entirely without influence. But the most striking feature of the disintegration is the expulsion, in most cases, of a product of the change with very great velocity—a result never observed in ordinary chemical reactions. This entails an enormous liberation of energy during the change, the amount, in most cases, being about one million times as great as that observed in any known chemical