Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1911-02-28
RADlUM TO HEAT THE WORLD.
German Physicists Prediction Of the
New Metals Future.

physics in the University Of Bonn,
Germany, who is at the Belmont, said
10 a Sun reporter that the people who,
lose sleep worrying about the possible
exhaustion of the worlds coal supply
and the gradual freezing up Of every
thing, With folks turning to icicleS or
lSetting out in airShfps for a planet
| whore there is still some fire left. had
no caucs to be troubled. BY the time
coal gives out, the doctor thinks, if ii
ever does. radium will be doing all the
work that fuel now accompishoS and
1morr
DR. Bucherer is qualified to speak
witt some degree of prophetic insight
because he is devoting all his spare
| time to the investigation of radium.
and he makes his prediction in the
light of the wonderful discovery Of Sir
William Ramsey. the great English
scientist that radium will split up
some things that had hitherto been
supposed nonsplittable. and in the
splitting set loose Il tremendous lot of
energy that DR.. Ruehcrer thinks will
one Cay be harnessed up and made to
| drive uactably.
1t was in Johns Hopkins University
l
his research work. although that was
! ho:cr' anybody know there was such
Il thing as radium. The doctor pail
a visit to his alma mater the other
day. and said he found the same spirit
Of inquiry that had always charar-
terized that institution still existent.
In Germany" said DR.. Bucherer
yesterday the subject of interest
i a nh 10 . A 10.
OF rrlativity-that motion can only he
| defined by a change in the relative
position OF material bodies. The
great American physicist Nicholson of
Chicago University disproved the
Maxwellian theory that motion could
| be defined as change of position
relative to the all-pervading ether, and
established that the only motion of
matter is relative to matter
My own laboratory work is con-
cerned principally with radium.
have used some of the properties of
| radium for investigating the very
problem which Nicholson has in
vestigated, because the effects of mo-
| tons Of material bodies relatively to
| one another can only be investigated
| b.! imparting TO such bodies velocities
which approach that of light, such as
| are furnished by the particles thrown
off by radium. which move with nine
ltenths OF the velocity OF light.
One finds that matter behaves en-
| tirely differently under such circum-
stances from what has been supposed
hitherto One of the most peculiar
| results has been that what physicists
| call the mass of the projected article
| becomes increasingly large as we in
crease the velocity with which we
project it. In Germany everybody
| takes the keenest interest in the
problem of finding out experimentaIly
| in what law the mass of a BODY de-
ponds upon it's velocity. The basis of
all this investigation is radium.
unfortunately the high price of
| radium is in the way of a more ex-
tensive investigation. than is being
carried on. The chief source of the
worlds supply is still the pitchblend
deposits of Joachimsthal in Bohemia,
though my own radium comes from
the United States. The Austrian
government does not allow the ore to
be taken from the country. and the
product is extracted under govern
ment supervision. They have been
getting only about one grain of radium
| out of ton of ore, though the method
of extraction has recently been i'm
proved. At present you can buy one
| millgram for 300 marks ($I5). which
represents bulk about the size of
| pins head.
THE idea of elements has been
completely destroyed by Ramsay's
discovery that copper, hitherto sup
posed to be an elemental substance.
could be resolved by radium into two
separate substances. Physicists hold
the theory that all matter is slowly de-
composing. but in most cases so slow.
~ that it is difficult to watch the de-
[compostion. Ramsay used radium as
an explosive, to dynamite copper into
lother things. 1t decomposes other
substances so rapidly tina it sets free
a tremendous lot of energy. In this
fact lies one great expectation Of the
scientific world.
This property of radium guaran-
tees to the world a source of energy
! that surpasses anything that can be
supplied by the combustion of coal or
by any kind Of chemical action--more
than million times surpasses it. Some
men of great imaginative power have
described a situation when, deprived of
its sources of heat and energy. the hui
man race will gradually die out from
cold and when on the earth's surface
will obtain condition similar to those
on the face Of the moon. Thus sci