Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1921-03-21
Untold Benefit to Humanity Has Resulted
From Her Labors and Our Women Plan
Unique and Worthy Testimonial

the old alchemist's desire to BE able "a
change one metal into another. It is true
that the alchemist was interested only in
changing ordinary metals into gold, and Il
is also true that Mime. Curie. the descendant
Of these alchemists, is not able to change
radium into anything else, for It changes
itself. and neither the hottest furnace nor
the coolest liquid air makes any difference
in the way or speed with which 1t changes.
It goes on quietly exploding and sending
OF big bombshells Of a gas known as helium.
which. as every one now knows. comes out
OF some gas wells in Kansas in large
amounts and was to be used for filling
drigibles IL the war had lasted longer. Most
people do not know, however, that helium
was first discovered in the sun by the spec
troscope and for for many years remained
undecided on earth.
But when the radium atom blows up it
sends OFF great bombshels Of helium, at the
rate Of 10000 miles a second and these go
shooting through the air until they strike
an air molecule and are checked.
The great force which they possess has
been used in q very extraordinary way of
late by one OF Nine. Curie's pupils. Sir
Ernest Rutherford, to show that by bomb
ing ordinary nitrogen gas-atoms OF the
same kind Of nitrogen that we breathe-an
atom of hydrogen can be knocked ont Of it.
for, as he probably guessed, all Of the sub
stances that we know are composed Of
few elements, of which hydrogen Is one. and
possibly the only one. When radium ex-
plodes it sends of not only the big bombs
but a lot Of little, very high velocity shells,
some of which 60 nearly as fast as light
and light travels faster than anything else
can ever travel. AS these little electrons
shoot madly out through space they give
- IT, Hr ~ <k~<$ t. y~e& kH~~A$
wabbles frantically, and, 10! beam Of X-ray
is produced The x-rays from radium we
call gamma rays.
Sir Ernest Rutherforfs
Experiments Interest Her
How do we know all these things? Be-
cause we can see many OF them. That Is,
the eye Of the camera can see them and
after all it seemed ridicuiously simple when
it was really thought out by bright Eng
lishman. He put the radium in glass bot
tie filed with damp air and then by chang
ing the pressure little made fog. and the
fog settled on these minute shooting stars,
just as it settles on the spider webs on damp
autumn mornings. Then as these fog laden
particles shot through space at the rate Of
thousands CT miles a second he photo
graphed them by hashlight-not the ordi-
nary f1ashlight which would never have
stopped them, but the quickest fashlight
which we know (that is, an electric spark.
which is only 1-3oo,oooth of second). And
so we have actually made visible particles
smaller than what we used to think was the
smallest thing known. and that is the atom.
These little particles weigh but 1-1,So0th as
much as the atom weighs.
Now, all this may seem very embarrassing
and theoretical but every one to-day knows
that radium is used to treat cancer, and the
reason why we use radium to treat cancer
is due to an unfortunate accident which oc-
CURED to Prof. Henri Becquerel. After he
had carried in his pocket tube containing
a little radium he had for a few weeks a
bad burn on his stomach. AS the older