Evening star., 1940-05-14
OF Stors, Men
And Atoms
Notebook Of Science Progress
In Field, Laboratory
And Study
By Thomas K. Henry.

~ lHOHlQS II. denTV.
A. few evenings ago an elderly gentle
man in evening dress stepped on the
| platform Of an ornate assembly hall in
Washington and, somewhat bashfully,
drank cocktail.
| He did 1t in the presence Of very
distinguished company-the member
ship Of the National Academy Of Sci
ences, the real "brain trust" Of America.
The gentleman was one Of them. He
tmbibed salt and water cocktail-.very
mild indeed. The bartender" was at
least equally distinguished-Dr. Ernest
o. Lawrence Of the University Of Cali
| fornia.
few moments later the martyr to
science began to explode. 1t sounded
like machine gun in operation some-
where along the Maginot Line. Bang
bang-bang" went his fingers, his chest,
his heart, his stomach, his liver, as DR..
Lawrence held in front of various parts
OF his body an apparatus known as the
| Gieger counter.
The noted scientist shared the stage
with some white lilies which were given
some of the same cocktail to drink
through their roots. They also exploded
like machine guns when exposed to the
Geiger counter.
The man and the lilies both had drunk
minute amount of artificial radium." :"
The machine gun shots were exploding
atoms. They had penetrated to nearly
every cell of the mans body. They were
dinused through the stem, the leaves
and the blossoms of the lilies.
1t was an entertaining demonstration
by the worlds foremost atom -smasher,
inventor Of the cyclotron, of other pos
sibilities, from the splitting Of uranium,
which, according to persistent rumor
among American physicists. Adolf Hitler
Is trying to have developed into the
most potent war weapon yet devised by
man.
After Is months since the prospects of
atomic power have been known, nobody
has ever proved conclusively that it can
ever kill a single human being or ever
turn a single factory wheel. The chances
are that 1t can do both some day.
Meanwhile, it has proved quite unex-
pectedly practical in far different field.
About 20 artificially radioactive ele-
ments, hitherto unknown on earth and
obtainable in no other way, have been
obtained by splitting uranium, or pos
sloly actino-uranium, approximately in
halves 1t has provided an extraordi-
nary tool for medical research. It may
have provided remedies for certain spe-
cine human diseases, such as deep
seated cancers and the terrible blood dis
ease, leukemia.
This Is long call from fuel-less bat
tleships ploughing through the seven
seas on their missions of death. or fuel
less airplanes loaded with bombs to drop
on defenseless cities. The physicists of
America would prefer that it stopped
there for the time being, although they
are IN duty bound to find out all they
can about it and report their finding to
the War Department. They are skepti-
cal but they are worried They will
continue to be worried until the war is
over.
There are other ways of obtaining
artificial radium." The stuff In the
cocktail served by DR.. Lawrence NAV
have been obtained by the lombard
ment Of other atoms. Some of the most
essential, however, can be made only by
splitting uranium.
1t Is dismal shift of the scene from
the well-lighted hall of the National
Academy of Sciences. founded by Abra-
ham Lincoln, to medieval castle on
the outskirts OF Copenhagen which the
Danish government few years ago de-
voted to the uses of Denmark's most
famous living citizen, DIR. Nils Bohr. He
was the man who first announced
uranium splitting to the American SCI
entists.
Late in January, 1899, the actual fis-
sure OF uranium was confirmed almost
simultaneously by DR.. Merle A. Tuve in
Washington and DR.. Fermi's associates
at Columbia. That same day they re-
ceived cable from Copenhagen that the
same thing had been accomplished few
days before in the Danish castle.
-f.of. Bohr has thrown the resources
OF his unique laboratory open to the
world. Last summer several American
physicists and graduate students were
working there on the uranium m-splitting
problem. There, If anywhere on earth.
the solution might have been expected.
Today Prof. Bohrs castle is in the hands
Of the Germans, there are no further
reports OF scientific results obtained
there, and great darkness has settled
over the spot which a month ago was
one of the torches of advancing civiliza-
ton.
But American physicists are none too
optimistic or pessimistic over the fu-
ture.
The theoretical possibilities. they saw.
dwarf the imagination. The practical
possibilities, up to the present, are nil
except for the creation of artificially
radioactive elements. But they would
like to know what is happening at the
Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. It would be
big load on their minds and their
eonsciences If they could be assured that
the Germans have advanced no further
than they themselves have advanced.