Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1945-08-07


the protons. at least, would fly apart
instead of sticking together, since
units of positive electricity should
repel each other. If they did, how
ever, the universe would be nom
existent. There could be no form or
shape to anything. All would be
one vast, thin cloud of hydrogen
gas. When the planetary model of
the atom came into being late in the
last century physicists had to as
sumo some kind of power of which
they knew nothing, acting within
the nucleus.
They could not even measure this
force, much less get at it. They
liked to speculate about ito CAL
culate how many grains of coal dust
1t would require to run train
around the world, or fly to the
moon. Some of them were rather
pessimistic. The day might come,
they said, when some adventurous
soul would find way to break a
nucleus wide open, but neither he
nor anybody else would ever know
anything about it because the in
slant 1t happened the earth would
be destroyed by the force Of the
explosion. This. it appears, was a
tri1e exaggerated.
Force Measured.
About four years ago three men In
a quiet laboratory on the edge of
Rock Creek Park for the first time
NSucceeded in measuring this strange
force. The means they used are
quite complicated and of no partic-
ular consequence here. They found
that when. a proton or a neutron
came within an almost infinites-
finally small distance Of another
body of the same size the mysterious
force became operative and that it
was-the figure is too vast to mean
much Of anything-about 1000 ,000,-
000, 900 900 900 .000, 600, 900 times the
force Of gravity acting on masses of
similar size.
Now there was a way to get at
this force. a trif1ing amount of it.
Atoms could be bombarded with
neutrons. Once in a very great
while a neutron, travelling with ter
rife speed, would hit a nucleus,
| possibly knock out one of its outer
particles, or be itself embodied in
the compact mass, whereupon an
other neutron or proton would be
dislodged. Sometimes. in fact, ii
happened spontaneously.
At the top of the table of ele-
ments is uranium. 1t weighs a
trif1e more than 238 times as much
as an atom of hydrogen. Around
its heavy nucleus revolve 90 plane
tary electrons. The protons anc
neutrons are packed so densely In
the nucleus that, for some reason OF
other. they form an unstable com.
bination. Every once in while ar
atom of uranium will explode, shoot.
ing out into the atmosphere al
alpha particle, about the same thing
as the nucleus of an atom of helium
the sun gas.
Becomes More Unstable.
When this happens the nucleus
becomes more unstable than ever
1t is changed from uranium tt
radium. The radium shoots oui
particles and protons until 1t finally
degenerates into a kind of lead
There is a lot of power behind these
explosions of both uranium and
radium-about 100000 volts in tn,
case of the former and running al
high as 1000, 900 volts for the latter
The energy is extremely penetrating
which is why radium is used tt
treat cancer.
4 Three years ago Prof. Enrice
Fermi Of the University of Rome
bombarded uranium with streams Of
neutrons with terrific energies be.
hind them. He found that now anc
then one of these would stick in the
nucleus temporarily and that tn.
subsequent behavior of the sub.
stance would be quite different from
that of uranium. 1t was still radio.
active-even more intensely SO. Fol
the first time man had made new
element. DIR. Fermi got the Nobe
Prize for it this year. Laboratories
all over the world got busy. 1t wa.
found that by the same procedur,
lots Of other things could be mad,
radio active-some things very pow.
erfully SO. Ordinary table salt wa!
one of them. This has been, amont
other things, great boon to medi
!, cine-how great the future alon,
can determine. The work is still
entirely experimental, but som,
extraordinary results have been pri.
vately reported.
}. Just Scratching Surface.
4 But all this was just scratching
the surface. Bold prophets pre-.
: dicted that If physics continued t.
advance for another century Thu
way 1t had for the past 90 year,
some great-grandson of q scientis1
now living might get inside th'
atom itself.
The thing came last week witt
dramatic suddenness. In Berlin /.
the great Kaiser Wilhelm Institute
where have been made some Of tn,
outstanding scientific discoveries o.
the modern world. During the pas
few years 1t has lost some of its hes
brains men and women who hav,
made some Of the outstanding In.
tellectual contributions of theil
times and are now homeless!
I wanderers because of the blood o.
:. their fathers and mothers.
4 One OF the star Of the Kaisel
Wilhelm Institute driven into exil,
was the physicist, DR.. Lie Neither
Through the years her keen intel.
lect had played secondary but i'm.
lportant part In outstanding physica
, accomplishments. Now she is al
old woman, broken in health ant
! spirit.
4 There are still good brains, how.
! ever, at the Kaiser wilhelm Insti.
I tute. One Of these Is Prof. @. Hahn
the chemist. Dr.. Neither had heel
one OF his associates. A few week
/ ago Dr. Hahn, working with somt
OF the ekauraniuln, the new elemen
/ originally produced BY Dr. FerIni