The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1913-12-22
II, G.. wELLs's VISION.

In the Century for January. whict
is lust ont, II. G.. Wells, the English
man whose imagination has gwen to the
world many brilliant pseudo scientific
phantasieS, begins a prophetic trilogy
entitled ''Thc Trap 10 Catch the Sun
While the narrative portion OF the
story has the customary charm of Wells
the most interesting part is his fore
cast of radioactive possibilities.
Mr.. Wells has the idea that all mat
ter is breaking up and falling to pieces
like radium, but at less perceptible
rates. He points out that uranium,
thorium and actinium are known to he
disintegrating. He declares that the
atom. once thought dead matter, is
the reservoir OF immense energy. lie
pictures a certain professor lecturing
to his class on the possibilities of
pint OF uranium oxide, The professor
says:
II dI al WOlu III UAN lhouhh' = S'H'<
suddenly release that energy here and
now, il would blow us and everything
about us to fragments; if ] could turn
it into the machinery that lights this
city, it could keep Edinburgh brightly
lit for 3 year. But at present no man
knows, no man has an ipkling of how
this little lump of stuff can be made
to hasten the release of its store, -
The professor foresees the time when
the disintegration of the radium eau
be fastened, and no adds.
'ENot only should we have source
Of power so potent that a man might
carry IN mis- hand the energy to light
city for year, fight fleet Of bat
tleships, or drive one Of our giant liners
across the Atlantic; but we should also
have clew that would cnablo us at
last to quicken the process of disinte-
grafton in all the other elements, where
decay is still so slow as to escape our
finest measurements.
The writer then describes the age,
only a few years hence, when science
is able to induce radio activity in the
heavier elements and so tap the in
ternal energy of atoms. The atomic
energy thus developed is soon applied
TO engines. BY the autumn of 1854,
according to the author, replacement Of
industrial methods and machinery is in
progress all about the habitable globe.
For many years the price of coal
and every form of liquid fuel had been
clambering to levels that made even
the revival of the draft-horse seem q
practicable possibility, and now with
the abrupt relaxation of this stringency
the change in the appearance OF the
traffic upon the world IS roadg was in
stantaneous. In three years tie fright
ful armorcd monsters that had hooted
and smoked and thundered about the
world for four awful decades, were
swept away to the dealers in old metal
and the. highways thronged with light
and clean and shimmering shapes of
siiyered steel.
Following the introduction of the
atomic energy, flying becomes safer and
more popular than motoring is at
the present day. Atomic smelling is
embarked upon so eagerly as to lead
to many disastrous explosions due to
inexperienced handling of the new
power, and the revolutionary cheap
ness Of both materials and electricity
make the entire reconstruction Of do
mestic buildings matter merely de-
pendent upon reorganization OF the
methods of the builder and house fur
nisher.
After indicating the changes wrought
in the world by the utilization of
atomic energy, the writer ends this
part Of his trilogy with tragic por-
trayal which does not seem to be jus
titled by the preceding argument. lie
shows that production is made easy and
wonderfully cheap by the new methods
and the new machinery. But he goes
on TO show that hundreds Of thousands
Of mon are thrown out Of work, and
are unable TO avail themselves of the
cheap product. This recalls the riots
in England in the early part OF the
nineteenth century as result of the
labor-saving machinery installed in the
factories. Men and women thrown out
Of employment destroyed the machinery
and bewailcd the time when improved
methods had merely Increased the pov.
crty and i'll fortune OF the working
classes. This. however, was but tenn.
porary condition. Increased produc.
lion and the new fields for work that
wcrc opened up by industrial civiliza.
ton produced cheaper and better goods
and provided work and increased wages
for rapidly multiplying populations. In
his narrative Mr.. Wells forcsec, the
arrival OF chcapened production at a
time when men are unpreparcd adc-
quatcly TO distribute the goods, and
hsrdships, famine, confusion and con.
flict following in the trail of atomic
energy. We may well believe, how.
ever, that in an age when science can