The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-04-25
Today S Science
by DAVID DIETZ'

NEW victory was chalked up for Professor Albert
N FinSten at the annual meeting of the American
Philosophical Society, the nations Oldest Scentlnc
society now in session in Philadelphia And with IL,
the stuff out of which this world is made became
more vague and Shadowy and the nature of the
universe became yet stranger.
The victory was scored by DR.. w. F. G. Swami,
director of the Barto research foundation OF SWarth-
more Pa one of the worlds greatest physicists.
DR. Swami told how many experiments conducted
at the Bartol laboratories during the last year IN
which radium rays, gamma rays and eosmlc rays
had been used lombard atoms of matter, had
revealed the conversion OF matter INTO energy ana
energy into atom.
In every case. he said. the phenomena obeyed the
so-called maSS-energy law of EinStein. According
to this law the energy equivalent of given amount
OF matter is its multiplied by the square of the
velocity of light.
With this work of DR.. Swami came the vertical
ton of the third great startling theory proposed by
Professor Einstein in 1905. In that year he pub
lished three papers. one the special theory of
RELATIVELY the second was the quantum theory and
the third, entitled The Inertia of Energy" which
set forth the maSs-energy relationship already de-
scribed
WITH relatively. space and time lost their old
w absolute qualities Measurement of length
and of time became things which changed with the
motion of the observer. With the quantum theory
light. once thought of as waves, was split up into
little bullets of energy called quanta.
And the atoms of matter have lost their
SodltY. Under the proper circumstances. they melt
away into energy. Under others they can be ma
terialized out of the right kind of light.
In the course of his remarks, DR.. Swami ex
planned number of ways in which the behavior
of the atom violates everything which might be
expected on the basis of old-fashioned ideas.
Each atom has nucleus composed of protons
and eleCtrons. SUIT strangely enough, as DR.. Swami
explained the more OF these particles in nucleus
the smaller it becomes. When atom is smashed
the proton or other particle which comes hurting
out Of the nucleus is larger than the nucleus itself
Apparently. nature is like the magician who pours
gallon Of water into pint bottle and then
moves a family of rabbits out of an opera hat.
DR.. Swami also discussed recent experiments at
the Bartol laboratory upon the subject of cosmic
rays. From these experiments he said that he was
convinced that the rays electrified particles of
extremely high electrical charges.
THIS lines up DR.. Bartol with DR.. Arthur H.
i Compton who says that the rays are charged
particles and puts him the other side Of the
fence from DR.. r. A. Milliken, who claims that they
are energy rays.
He said that recent experiments showed that in
some collisions between cosmic rays and atoms
more than 5000 particles were knocked out of the
atoms. Explaining this phenomena, he sad that it
was likely that the original coSmic ray knocked
neutrons out OF the first atom ii hit which in turn
disrupted other atoms
Dr. Henry Norris Russell. famous astronomer of
Princeton university, told the society that num-
Der OF Chemical compounds had now been identified
in the atmospheres of both the sun and the stars
Al one time II was supposed that all elements
iSted IN the atomic state in the sun. Among the
compounds mentioned by DR.. Russell were carbon
monoXoe, nitrogen. hydride, oxygen hydride oxygen
nitrate, oxygen carbide hydrogen carbide and titan
inm oxide.