Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 82.djvu/529

Rh I would suggest that these two types of ionization may result from the two different types of collision which the atom must experience. The first type is collision with a corpuscle; since the corpuscle is an exceedingly small body moving with a very great velocity, it can pass freely through the atom, and the collision it makes with the atom is really a collision with a corpuscle inside the atom; this may result in the corpuscle it strikes acquiring such a great velocity that it is able to escape from the atom; this type of collision will result in the detachment of a single corpuscle. The second type of collision is when the atom collides with another atom and not with another corpuscle; the result of this collision may be that the atom suffers a sudden change in its velocity. This change is not at first shared by the corpuscles, so that these just after the collision may have a very considerable velocity relative to the atom. If there are several corpuscles which are comparatively loosely attached to the atom, these may all be detached from it and leave it with a positive charge corresponding to the number shaken out. It is this type of collision which we regard as giving the multiply-charged ions, and we see that the magnitude of the charge is a measure of the number of corpuscles in an atom which are readily 'detachable from it. We have seen that the greater the atomic weight the greater the charge it can acquire, the maximum charge being roughly proportioned to the square root of the atomic weight, hence the heavy elements have a larger number of detachable corpuscles than the lighter ones.

Another application of the method I should like to bring before you is the use of it for the discovery and investigation of a new substance. I have in previous lectures said that sometimes there appeared on the plates a line corresponding to a particle with an atomic weight 3; this must either be a new element or a polymeric modification of hydrogen, represented by. The other possibility that it is a carbon atom with four charges is put out of court by the fact that it frequently occurs when the carbon line is exceedingly faint, and when there is not a trace of a carbon atom with even two charges, though the doubly-charged carbon atom occurs readily under certain conditions. In addition to this, the carbon atom parabola never approaches the vertical near enough to allow of its having four charges. I thought the study of the substance producing this line would be of interest, and I have for some time been working at it. and although the research is by no means completed, I have obtained some results which I should like to bring before you.

At first I was greatly hindered by not knowing the conditions under which the line occurred; although it appeared from time to time on the plates, its appearance was always fortuitous and sometimes for weeks together the plates would not show a trace of the line. The line sometimes appeared, but why it did so was a mystery, and I could not get it when I wanted it. I began an investigation, which proved long and