Evening star., 1939-02-05

Early last week occurred an almost
incredible event-the splitting OF an
atom and the first release of atomic
energy.
BY implication it may be the most
significant happening of our times Man
has got his hand on the throttle of
the stars On the other hand, for
the present it is little more than a
scientific curiosity of no practical use
TO anybody except workers in expert
mental physics laboratories. And for
all anybody knows, it may never be
of any use, although such a predic-
ton would be flying in the face of
precedent.
If the accomplishment of breaking
an uranium atom in two, reported si
multaneously from Washington, New
York, Baltimore and Copenhagen under
the most dramatic circumstances, can
be developed to its full implications
the actual release and control of any
considerable part of the energy that
binds together all things in creation
hardly any predictions can be too fan
tastic. Very likely the best guess would
be the widest and the day the puz-
zled Prof G. Hahn at the Kaiser Will
helm Institute in Berlin found minute
amount of barium communicating
preparation of uranium which he had
bombarded with slow neutrons may have
constituted a major turning point in
the history of the world
Difficulties in Way.
Can man ever fly to the moon, Venus
or Mars? Last week the answer of any
sober scientists would have been an
unqualified no. Today the answer may
we'll be an optimistic maybe-with the
actual accomplishment thrown far
enough into the future. He certainly
could If he had control of atomic
energy.
Could big gun be set up in Berlin
and lombard Washington? Maybe so
If this energy can be tapped and
controlled fully. But it should be kept
clearly in mind that this is not yet
the case and may never be-
The difficulties in the way of tapping
FOR practical purposes the binding en-
ergy that holds creation together are
incalculably stupendous. The signifi-
canoe of last weeks happening was that
1t was beglnning-the accomplishment
on however small a scale of what the
worlds most eminent physicists were
confident never could be accomplished
In any degree.
What is this binding energy?
In any grain of sand there is power
which dwarfs the power of Niagara.
Millions of Atoms.
A grain of sand is a conglomeration
OF millions of atoms so loosely packed
together that the mass of them is mostly
empty space. Each of these atoms might
be pictured, for the sake of simplicity
and for the time being, as an infinites-
imally minute model of the solar system.
In the center there is very small,
dense mass. Revolving around it like
planets around the sun are various
numbers of bodies about equal to it in
size but a thousandfold lighter-so light,
In fact, that they can be considered as
not weighing anything at all The dis
tances between them and the heavy
central body are, relative to the sizes
involved, roughly comparable to the dis
tances between the planets and the sun.
The heavy central mass, or nucleus of
the atom, is in turn made up of two or
three kinds of smaller particles. At
least for the present it is simpler to
consider them as particles. That is
about as near as the human imagination
can come to picturing them. One kind
are known as protons. Each proton is
a particle carrying one charge of posi-
tive electricity. The other kind are
neutrons. A neutron is particle of
about the same size and weight as
proton which carries no electrical charge
at all. The planets revolving around this
central sun are, of course, electrons, or
particles carrying one charge of mega
tive electricity.
No Space Between.
Between the protons and neutronS in
the nucleus there is no space whatso-
ever. We have come a long way from
the grain of sand or the grain of gold,
which is about 99.9 per cent empty space,
to form OF matter where space is nom
existent. If a marble were made up of
solidly packed protons and neutrons it
would weigh several TONS
What keeps these particles packed to-
gether? 1t is quite obviously some til
tanic force. One would expect that the
protons, at least, would fly apart in
stead of sticking together, since units
Of positive electricity should repel each
other. If they did, however, the universe
would be non-existent. There could be
no form or shape to anything. All would
be one vast. thin cloud of hydrogen gas.
When the planetory model of the atom
came into being late in the last century
physicists had to assume some kind of
power of which they knew nothing, act
ing within the nucleus
They could not even measure this
force, much less get at it. They liked
to speculate about ito calculate how
many grains of coal dust it would re-
quire to run train around the world,
or fly to the moon. Some Of them were