Evening star., 1925-01-29

/ tHdt the same as inert, SIT.
/ asked Milliken.
That's it. 1t won't combine with
anything"
! And that's why our shells did not
! fire the gas in the envelope" Mill.
! ken insisted
Exactly. The aithou would not
| make the necessary combina ton with
! oxygen, Dan said patiently. Now
| think of it, We know hydrogen, un.
satisfied with its one external elec.
] tron, has a ralence of one Helium
I the element next to hydrogen il
| weight satisfied with its TWO elec.
| irons external to the nucleus has no
| valence whatever. Here's thing
! lighter than either. also with no
| valence. What makes up its system
| We imagine hydrogen to have q
| positive nucleus round which is
whirling 4 negative electron-or that
they're COINS round each other like
! the knobs or q twfrled dumbbell
that's the simplest system we know.
But this aitherium-I mean this
! a!thon--is much lighter in mass than
tie hydrogen, and simpler system
! is argued. I'm putting it very crude
~ and in painfully unscientific terms
but ] want YOU to understand"
We get YOU 90 far, Dan" said l.
What follows exactly?"
"One mustn't say what follows
exactly" he replied. "The thing must
he determined by experiment before
one begins to talk in set terms. ]
leave 1t so and get along to the
next point
But 1t IS a curious thing about
scien ifc discovery" he went on.
half TO himself, that each new step.
at first thought revolutionary, serves
but TO illumine older ideas. We can
say that much about the discovery
OF dio-actiVity. few years be-
fore the discovery of rsdium by the
Curies in 1897, any one postulating g
the now established facts about
radium would have been laughed at;
but 1t was only by applying to the
new facts OF radium the then estsb-
liShed principles of science that the
tull significance of these new facts
was realized. This may well prove
to be the case with aithon, when
new instruments are made to en-
anime it more delicately than is now
p0gSsibls:. g%n
Dan Lamont. the university lecturer,
and | dare say Milliken and ! were
gaping at him, for he turned suddenly
with grin and said. as If mocking
his own seriousness:
This is deep stuff. Jimmy"
go on"
1I'm going to-" he declared i've
got TO make you see, if ! can, what
has been going on in this cavern--
aye, and for years before in the brain
of the chief. You know what hap
pens when you ionize a gas?'
You turn it into a conductor Of
electricity" / suggested.
Crude, crude" said Dan, and
wish for the sake of brevity YOUR
description would serve. You make
II, IS matter of fact, an electrolyte
bringing it into a dissociated condi-
ton OF oppositely charged positive
and negative ions. These little fell
lows, the ions, hop over to their op-
posite poles, making what's called an
electric current Well, YOU can
ionize this sithon. I've seen il done
tonight. I've also seen its quite dis
tinctive spectrum. 1t ionizes COM
paratively easily. That would make
you think aithon had some atomic
system as we understand il now"
He broke off again to pace up and
down the cave for a moment or two
in silence.
Let us imagine" he went on
imagine the sun to be the positively
charged nucleus of the hydrogen
atom, and say-leaving out the re-
mainder of the solar planets for the
sake of convenience-that the earth
is the single electron. Never mind
the failure Of the comparison as re-
CARDS relative mass. Bring the mass
of the sun down to the size Of the
nucleus of the hydrogen atom. and
say that we could see its electron,
Il get you, Dan" said 7.
Well? Have you nothing to ask
me?"
No" I said slowly. Not a thing"
Dan looked at me with great pity.
Il embark on entirely unscientifc
anaIosies to meet the deficiencies of
your education, and you reward me
So, said he. What about you, Mil
liken?"
I'D ask you If the moon came into
II at all Milliken said with grin
al me-
There is balm in Gilead" said Dan.
That's the notion. On the principle
Of little feas with lesser fess'-how
do we know that the electron. So
called, is not like the earth. a minute
system in itself?-held. it is true, by
the nucleus? 1t has been proved be-
yond cavil in the laboratory next door
that this new gas has mass-yet its
atomic weight is demonstrablyl lighter
than hydrogen-seven times less. Are
We not brought to the conclusion
then. that beyond and within the
present known system Of the atom
there is another. infinitely more mi
mute in unit, and that that which we
now know as the electron is to those
units merely what the atom is to it's
electrons?"
Dan was still walking up and down
the cave, but now he was shaking his
loose change in his cupped hands. the
old trick when excited. He turned to
US with his eyes agleam.
For the last year or two," he went
on, much of my experimenting has
been to discover why electrons varied
in behavior. The electrons of differ
ent radioactive substances. though
nominally OF the same mass and
character, often failed to behave SIM
ilarly in like experiments. I wondered
why-why? I begin to think that
with the discovery of this aithon we
fringe on the cause. We may be on
tie point of solving that phenomenon
which, for lack of a better name, we
have called these many years the
sther-that mysterious. supposedly
Intangible medium to which, through
its conduction OF the suns energy. We
owe our very life"
The ether" cried Danny There's
a Thought to fire the ina sinationl
What If ii should arrive that we find
the ether to be our standard for
measuring matter? What il IL should
prove that the ether is composed Of
particles of matter infinitely smaller
than the electron as we now under