Evening star., 1939-09-03
Atmosphere Yields
A Rarer and Lighter
HeIium, No. ;
Lifting Power Greater
Than Variety Now
Used in DirieibIes
Hy the Associated Press.


Used in DirieibIes
b the Associated Press.
BERKELEY, Calf, Sept 2.-Dis.
covery in the earths atmosphere Of
a surprise element, lightweight hell
UNI, was reported today by research
ers working with the University OF
California's atom busting machine
the cyclotron
Known heretofore only as sort
of ghost element that appeared and
disappeared like a lightning flash
incidental to certain transmutations
it turned out to be a stable SUBJ
stance in the air.
This lightweight helium, known
technically as helium 3, would be
Ideal for giving dirigible and other
balloons much desired combina-
ton of high lifting power and non
inflammability, but it is extremely
scarce and hard to get.
. Prof. Luis w. Alvarez, physicist,
who with Robert Cornog. a grad
uate student, made the discovery
found that the lightweight stuff
comprised only one -millionth OF
the already minute regular helium
content of the atmosphere.
Prove Existence.
Profs. Alvarez and Cornog OBJ
tanned only a few million atoms
not enough to be seen under a micro
scope if punched together. But they
established that it was real sub
stance existing in nature, and not
just laboratory freak.
Previously Prof. Alvarez said,
physics Laboratories had taken it for
granted that helium did not exist
outside an atom smashing chamber
and then for only few millionths
of second. Thus 1t supposedly did
not last long enough to be found in
nature.
The experiment, Prof. Alvarez
added, was undertaken in the ex-
pectation that it would fail and
therefore support the correctness of
the suppositions.
But the experiment succeeded and
surprised even the researchers.
Virtually all the helium used by
man comes from wells in the earth.
the most of it from Texas and other
Southwestern States. 1t is supposed
to be a product of the natural dis
integration of radium. This decay
process is constant and very slow,
and it also involves the formation of
the metal lead as an ''end product V
Billions of Years Produce Gas.
BY determining the proportion of
lead in an ore deposit containing
radium, scientists have calculated
the minimum age of the earth at
several billion years. During that
period. the helium also has been
accommodating.
But radium decay has been OBJ
served to produce only regular hell
UNI. Profs. Alvarez and Cornog
tested some of it, however. and found
tiny trace of lightweight helium
in it.
They said it was fair to assume
that lightweight heilum existed in
q free state with the formation of
the earth and that only occasional
atoms of it found their way into the
earth to join their heavier relatives
of radium parentage.
To capture the tiny experimental
amount necessitated the rigging up
of the cyclotron as "super-mass
spectrograph As such the ma
chine was deemed capable of de-
tecting impurities or irregularities
In a given substance even though
they existed in the proportion OF
only one in 10000, 900 900, 900 QO
trillion.
Ordinary helium is the second
hghtest of the conventional ele-
ments. hydrogen being hghtest
Helium is 25 per cent lighter than
the ordinary element. but about
three times as heavy as regular
hydrogen. Nevertheless, the lifting
power of lightweight helium is
close to that of hydrogen.
Lifting Power Gauged.
1t was calculated that lightweight
helium would lift 95.7 per cent as
much weight as hydrogen. Ordinary
helium has only about 92.3 per cent
of the lifting power of hydrogen.
Thus helium 3 would be ideal for
lighter than-air craft.
The difference in weight between
ordinary and lightweight helium
enabled DR.. Alvarez and his col
league to separate helium from the
atmospheric element.
Ordinary atmospheric helium was
put into a round chamber through
which the cyclotron shot powerful
magnetic waves. BY varying the
magnetic strength the experimenters
could Whirl the atoms around in the
chamber at any speed desired. They
set it to fix the speed of the Or
dinary helium atoms at a given
rate. Then they reduced the power
by Is per cent.
The heavier atoms, with less slim
ulation, slowed down. But the re-
duced magnetic power still was suf-
ficient to make any lightweight
atoms travel as fast as did the
heavier ones originally.
Profs. Alvarez and Cornog then
set an atom counter at an opening
in the chamber and checked the
light weights as they came out
ahead of the heavier atoms. The
counter showed the light weights
constituted about one 10-millionth
of the total number of helium atoms
put into the chamber.
Both Non-inf1ammable.
Neither ordinary nor lightweight
helium will burn. The United
States has a good natural supply of
ordinary helium from the earth, but
little more prospect of obtaining the
lightweight element than any other
country.
Dirigibles such as the Akron and
the Macon, which used ordinary
he(ium but met with fireless dis
aster, each requiring $500 900 cubic
feet of lifting oaS-an imDOSSible