Evening star., 1947-08-03

s STAR, Washington, D. c.
. AUGUST .. isz.
when it was sprung on an ,unsus-
pecting world.
There is one thing in the world the
nuclear energy possibilities of which
are a hundred-fo1d greater than
those of uranium, plutonium or
thoritlm. This Is billion times
more abundant than uranium. 1t
is the mother gas of all creation,
the lightest of the elements
hydrogen. The process of extract
ing energy from it would be just
the reverse Of that used with pluto
MUM. building up rather than tear
ing down. .
Next Lightest Element.
Essentially four hydrogen nuclei
make one helium nucleus. Helium is
the next lightest element. But one
atom of helium weighs slightly less
than our atoms of hydrogen. Some
mass has been lost. This must have
been released in the form Of energy,
since the sum of the mass and
energy Of anything Is indestructible.
Physicists know, theoretically. how
the transformation comes about.
The only difficulty about duplicating
it in the laboratory Is that about a
million degrees of heat centigrade
are required. This is somewhat diff
ficuft to get-or to hold If it was
gotten-at the present writing. Still
only a few months ago the chief
physicist Of one Of the armed serv-
ices said he did not think it was i'm
possible within the relatively near
future, although he had no immedi-
ate ideas as to how it could be ac-
complished.
But the plutonium bomb at its
worst would be a child's toy COM
pared to bomb of "hydrogen-hang-
ing g-into-helium 1t is quite possible
that the man who achieves it will
never know about it-nor anybody
else-for at that instant the world
might disappear in a little pun Of
cosmic smoke.
Fantastic Possibility.
There Is another fantastic posi-
hility-not to be taken too seriously
but presented as an idea for some
futuristic fiction writer. That Is the
combination of negative and positive
matter which would Immediately
annihilate each other, atom for
atom. .
Behind their iron curtain the Rus
slams doubtless are working on
atomic bombs of their own. If they
are not, Uncle Joe belongs in
home for the feeble-minded, con-
sidering the present state ofethe
world. Russian motives need be no
more sinister than our own.
There are some first rate Russian
physicists. Among them is Peter
Kapitza. He is most often men
toned in America because his funda-
mental researches are best known
here and have the respect of Ameri-
can physicists. Those who know
him say Kapitza is a very decent
human being, with no ill-will to-
wards anybody. But somehow or
other he has become a nightmare
to people who think the Russians
are plotting the destruction Of the
rest of the world. Kapitza, by the
way, is a man of middle age-and
men of middle age are not the most
brilliant atomic physicists these days.
They are too much bound down by
the classical physics of the past.
The chances are there are a score
of young Russians who have for
gotten more about the physics Of
the nucleus than Cambridgeedu
Gated Kapitza ever knew.
Experiments by Kapitza.
+ But to get back to negative and
positive matter About 18 months
ago Kapitza carried out some expert
ments on q high mountain in the
Caucasus. He reported that he found
in ,cosnie radiation q "negatron"-
that is, a negatively charged proton.
It's existence had been surmised be-
fore. The proton is the mass Of
positive electricity in the atomic
nucleus. sss,
Well established is the existence
of the "positron," or positively
charged electron. 1t is perfectly al
lowable to imagine matter some
where in the universe with nuclei
composed of negatrons and planet
ary shells made up of positrons-
precisely the opposite of the ar
rangement in the solar system. Sup
posing it were possible to make some
of this negative matter Any posi-
tive matter with which it was
brought in contact would instantly
vanish. At least, it looks that way.
But not even the most sinister Rus
sian brain is thinking of negatrons
bombs now-and probably never will
be.
There are, of course, those who
say that the Russian scientists have.
no imagination, originality, initiative
that If they ever get an atomic
bomb of any sort it will be because
they have stolen some of our
secrets. This, of course, is unadul-
terated nonsense. Russian funda-
mental research is as good as Ameri-
can or British-probably more orig
inal since Uncle Joe's boys are not
trammeled with as much dead
weight or tradition. 1t is safe to
say that they already know as
much as any American knows about
the atomic bomb and perhaps more
except for some chronological de-
tails. Secrets must be something
of an irritation to them-nothing
more. 1t is not too well known that
Soviet physicists before the war