The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1903-09-06
MIGHT DISARM ALL
Partisan Scientist Makes an
Astounding Statement.
WAR AN IMPOSSIBILITY
If Radium Were Put to Certain
Use.

on the nature and powers of that most
wonderful of metals, radium, made the
following literally astounding declaration
yesterday:
We might Cby means of radiurn) ex-
plode all the arsenals in the world and
finish war forever by exhausting all ac-
cumulated explosives. And while we are
making supposidons we may go one step
further and even suppose that a man
might invent an instrument which COM
bining all these immense forces of nature,
would at the touch of key blow up the
whole earth and bring about the end of
the world.
In the event of war it might be posi-
bic for the nation which had perfected the
use of radium to explode all the forts and
ammunition in an enemy's country by
merely turning a small glass tube.
My experiments prove that there are
in radium certain forces of infinite poten-
TALLY. Some day, when properly under
stood, they may give rise TO the con-
struction of a new system of electric or
radio active guns which will not project
ball but bundle OF electric sparks at
immense distances, and set fire TO yes
sells and explode the ammunition of a
great man-of-war.
Il call 1t this-black light"
Think of tia gun to launch a bundle
of radium rays at a formidable battle
ship,
Fancy a weapon which can blow up the
most powerful fort in the world, equipped
wit all hat ic haS in md ri
nancei And then go further and imag-
inc a force which, at the command of a
single man. might bring about the de-
struction of the world,
Physical research has been DR.. lie Bon's
one aim in life ever since he left his pre-
paratory school. Today he looks more
like the wizard of days long past, when
men strove to make gold out of dross and
to solve the secret of forces that would
make them masters of the world. than
like man of the twentieth century.
The first thing you will see in his dimly
lighted workshop-it is one of the quaint
est of the old houses of Paris-is a grin
ming skeleton at one end of the room
At the other end a smiling Venus faces
the grim emblem of mortality. Old oak
sideboards and Anticipated tables
line the walls. On them stand the most
curious and absorbing pieces of appara-
tus. Electrodes, balances mysterious in
struments of brass and gutta percha,
tubes and globes litter the tables every
where
In speaking today to a correspondent
he said:
Il have studied radio-activity since it
was first limited at by the discovery of
the HertZian waves in 1888. Wireless te-
Biography might have been invented ten
years earlier if there had been some one
to apply the laws that l then clearly
formulated as the result of my researches
cannot devote myself both TO the study
of the abstract principles in nature and
to their application on practical lines.
Look at the immense waste of force
which is perceived when you set working
an electro-radiator. Some years ago in
my experiments with Prof Brandy we
sent electric radiations at a distance Of
fifty miles. just as now electric waves
are used for wireless telegraphy.
1--WE sent at the same time electric
waves on all the points of a sphere with
we covered a superficies of more than
10000 square miles with energy out of
which only half an inch was utilized by
the small receiving tube.
What becomes of all the remaining
energy wasted, and of which we collected
only one hundred-millionth. or infinites-
imal part? Nobody has yet come to in
vent a means for collecting it. Yet it IS
there, waiting to be utilized and to move /
all the steamers afloat on the ocean.
Ten years ago 1 published in PAM
phlet my first studies on radium and what |
l called black light. I described by that
term the illusions of bodies struck by |
rays of light When the uranic rays were |
afterward discovered 1 was confirmed |
in my views, as l saw their analogy to |
what l had termed black light.
4 deduced therefrom the following /
general law:
IAN bodies. when under the action Of |
light. of chemical reaction. electric &C
ton and often spontaneously, emit from |
their constituent atoms or effluvia which /
are entirely distinct in their nature from +
the properties of the bodies or atoms from /
strange in this; as. for instance. when |
YOU throw stone into water it produces
waves. yet waves have nothing in COM
mon with stone. SO when under certain
conditions 1 find that radium produces
at a distance or acts on
bodies at a distance through solid metallic
walls it produces a light which / cali
black light. because il is not visible TO the
human visual organ, but has
exactly the same properties as the vibra-
tons which produce light. difference be-
n and therefore do not work on the
Usual nerve.
l ventured TO ask: Have you not re-
,ently had some wonderful manifestations
Turing your experiments. when it was
said you produced balls OF fire on all the
gas Jets and other metallic objects in
he room in which you were experiment
ng?"
Yes" said the doctor. ''radium does
produce ernanations at a distance. but
hey are only family visible and in the
lark, Ike phosphorescence. Besides IA
lium is too expensive for the present 10
,e OF any use
What have discovered is that all OBJ
ects retain and accumulate Impressions
hey have received. You have heard. OF
atent heat: all bodies also have latent
ight. latent energy OF every description
which continues oozing out Of them con-
itantly. This Is why you may see light
Il a distance which YOU cannot see near
". II you were on the planet Mars. for