The New York herald., 1920-01-26
SIR OLIVER VIEWS
ATOMS AS WORLDS
People Made Out of Ether In
stead of Matter, Says Famous
Scientist.
BIG THRONG IN THE SHUBERT
Briton Describes Most Minute Unit as
Sort of Solar System with
Tremendous Speed.

Ladies and Gentlemen:-Con the
atom. It sees not, neither is it seen, yet we
nave it always with us"
An audience so large that hundreds were
content to stand sat and stood spellbound
in the Shubert Theatre last night, while
Sir oliver Lodge eminent British physicist
figuratively put the tiny atom through Its
tricks for their edificadon.
Sir Oliver compared the atom to a flea.
constantly on the jump, and to a bullet.
tearing around the earth many times
second. He traced to the atom the answer
TO the oft asked question, why is the sky
blue?" Small though he pictured the atom
to be, he declared it to be as complicated
as grand piano, and in his lecture on
The Structure of the Atom" he dissected
it so that all could comprehend, even If
they could not see.
The conclusion Sir Oliver drew from his
explanations was that everybody is made
of electricity, whereas they might have
thought they were made of matter. Mat
ter, according to chemical theory, is moth
ing but a collection of atoms. and atoms
in turn are composed of electrons. which
are but positive or negative electric
charges, he said, although ne personally
thinks people are built of the ether OF
space, which he will discuss in another
lecture.
Revealed by Radio Activity.
Radio active substances first gave away
the secret Of the electron theory, he said.
Uranium, the father of them all. can In
some manner explode four times, each
time throwing off one OF its active cleo
irons and then becomes radium. Radiunl
in turn explodes five times and settles
fn ife
jectile," he said, is an atom OF helium.
AS helium is found only near hot springs,
Sir Oliver has concluded that VOLCANOES
and geysers are only manifestations of the
radio activity of the earth's crust.
No means are available to get at the
energy stored up in each atom, Sir Oliver
said but If the energy in an ounce OF mat
ter could be extracted it would be more
than the energy in 100 tons OF coal, and
the energy from part OF this ounce
would be enough to raise the sunken Ger
man navy to the tops of the Scottish
mountains.
In expounding his theory OF the struc-
ture OF the atom. Sir Oliver explains that
an atom probably has as a nucleus
positive electron. and around il in regular
orbits revolve one or more negative cleo
irons, after the fashion OF the solar syr-
tenn. These nuclei and revolving particles
have been counted by means of the X-ray
there is one positive centre and one re-
volving negative electTri in each atom
Of hydrogen, the lightest element. ranging
tc ninety-two OF each In uranium. the
heaviest element. These electrons revolve
so fast they could go seven times arounf
the earth in second. he said. -
5O0.OOO.oOO 20 an Inch.
To impress upon his hearers the minute
ness OF the atom, Sir oliver declared that
there are SOC. .00O, 900 20 n linesl inch. and
that the smallest group OF them that can
be detected by spectrum analysis is e, 900
times the total number OF people on the
earth.
Yet certain number OF atoms of any
thing can be found anywhere" the scion
other flotation of "A company to extract
gold from the sea water when say tha
there are fifty thousand million atoms of
gold in a drop of sea water. That is the
proportion of one-fiftieth OF grain to
ton. One sounds very little. the othei
very big, but they are both the same
The discovery of the parts of atoms
almost inconceivably smaller than the
atoms themselves. was due to the inven-
tion of the Crookes tubes in 1879, he said.
when Sir William Crookes declared thai
in the semi-vacuum of his tubes he had
brought matter into fourth state other
than solid, liquid or gaseous. This fourth
state is the electron state, Sir Oliver said
into which any matter can be broken
when an electric current is passed through
il in a high vacuum. The discovery only
bore out the theories Of Benjamin Frank
lin, to which only posterty will do full
justice, Sir Oliver said.