Page:Radio-activity.djvu/191

 each projected α particle is able to produce about 100,000 ions in passing through a few centimetres of the gas before its velocity is reduced to the limiting value, below which it no longer ionizes the gas in its path.

Energy is required to ionize the gas, and this energy can only be obtained at the expense of the kinetic energy of the projected α particle. Thus it is to be expected that the α particle should gradually lose its velocity and energy of motion in its passage through the gas.

Since the rate of absorption of the α rays in gases is deduced from measurements of the ionization of the gas at different distances from the source of radiation, a knowledge of the law of variation of the ionizing power of the projected α particle with its speed is required in order to interpret the results. The experimental data on this question are, however, too incomplete to be applied directly to a solution of this question. Townsend has shown that a moving electron produces ions in the gas after a certain limiting velocity is reached. The number of ions produced per centimetre of its path through the gas then rises to a maximum, and for still higher speeds continuously decreases. For example, Townsend found that the number of ions produced by an electron moving in an electric field was small at first for weak fields, but increased with the strength of the electric field to a maximum corresponding to the production of 20 ions per cm. of path in air at a pressure of 1 mm. of mercury. Durack found that the electrons, generated in a vacuum tube, moving with a velocity of about 5 × 10^9 cms. per second produced a pair of ions every 5 cms. of path at 1 mm. pressure. In a later paper, Durack showed that for the electrons from radium, which are projected with a velocity greater than half the velocity of light, a pair of ions was produced every 10 cms. of path. The high speed electron from radium is thus a very inefficient ionizer and produces only about 1/100 of the ionization per unit path observed by Townsend for the slow moving electron.

104. In the case of the α particle, no direct measurements have been made upon the variation of the ionization with the