Page:Radio-activity.djvu/307

 produced by about 40 expelled α particles per second. Each radiating particle cannot expel less than one α particle and may expel more, but it is likely that the number expelled by an atom of the thorium emanation is not greatly different from that expelled by an atom of the radium emanation.

In section 133 it has been shown that, according to the law of decay, λN particles change per second when N are present. Thus, to produce 40 α particles, λN cannot be greater than 40. Since for the thorium emanation λ is 1/87, it follows that N cannot be greater than 3500. The electrometer thus detected the presence of 3500 particles of the thorium emanation, and since in the static method the volume of the condensing spiral was about 15 c.c., this corresponded to a concentration of about 230 particles per c.c. An ordinary gas at atmospheric pressure and temperature probably contains about 3·6 × 10^{19} molecules per c.c. Thus the emanation would have been detected on the spiral if it had possessed a partial pressure of less than 10^{-17} of an atmosphere.

It is not surprising then that the condensation point of the thorium emanation is not sharply defined. It is rather a matter of remark that condensation should occur so readily with so sparse a distribution of emanation particles in the gas; for, in order that condensation may take place, it is probable that the particles must approach within one another's sphere of influence.

Now in the case of the radium emanation, the rate of decay is about 5000 times slower than that of the thorium emanation, and consequently the actual number of particles that must be present to produce the same ionization per second in the two cases must be about 5000 times greater in the case of radium than in the case of thorium. This conclusion involves only the assumption that the same number of rays is produced by a particle of emanation in each case, and that the expelled particles produce in their passage through the gas the same number of ions. The number of particles present, in order to be detected by the electrometer, in this experiment, must therefore have been about 5000 × 3500, i.e. about 2 × 10^7. The difference of behaviour in the two cases is well explained by the view that, for equal electrical effects, the number of radium emanation particles must be far larger than the number of thorium