Atomic Age

“ We cannot, of our own free will, violate the very principles that we are striving to defend. The whole purpose of what we are doing is to prevent world war III. Starting a war is no way to make peace.
But if anyone still thinks that just this once, bad means can bring good ends, then let me remind you of this: We are living in the 8th year of the atomic age. We are not the only nation that is learning to unleash the power of the atom. A third world war might dig the grave not only of our Communist opponents but also of our own society, our world as well as theirs. ”

“ The Western day is indeed nearing when the inner science of self-control will be found as necessary as the outer conquest of nature. This new Atomic Age will see men's minds sobered and broadened by the now scientifically indisputable truth that matter is in reality a concentrate of energy. ”

“ By our knowledge of radioactivity we can make our answer a little more learned, a little less abrupt, but none the less discouraging to the advocate of the development hypothesis. We can tell how the elements of high atomic weight, such as uranium and thorium, are constantly giving off particles and are thus by loss or decomposition being changed over into other elements, such as radium, niton, polonium and lead. ”

“ There has been little or no proof obtained that any artificial transmutation of the elements is possible, but the spontaneous transformation of the radioactive elements brings forward the possibility that other elements are changing imperceptibly, and that a state of evolution exists among them. All of the radioactive changes that we know proceed from higher to lower atomic weights, and we are entirely ignorant of the process by which uranium and thorium must have been produced originally. ”

“ It was found that the two elements of the highest atomic weights, uranium and thorium, are always spontaneously decomposing into other elements at a fixed rate of speed which can be controlled by no artificial means, and that the elements resulting from these decompositions likewise undergo spontaneous changes into still other elements at greatly varying rates of speed, forming in each case a remarkable series of temporary elements. ”

“ Freezing one instant, roasted to the bone the next. How thick is that wall? The guess that we credit oftenest is twelve miles. A scant twelve miles of radioactivity, and I could fly that far in the time it would take you to snap shut the fingers of your hand—perhaps my craft on its momentum would plunge through. I think it would. I think I could aim it for the southern tip of South America, and by the time that you could walk across the editorial room there at the Observer in London, I would have smashed across the Atomic Curtain and landed on that coast that once was Patagonia. ”

“ The results of recent work on the phenomena of radioactive bodies make it probable that the beginning of life on this earth may be much farther back in time than was formerly supposed. The heat which has been radiated from our earth has been in part supplied by the energy of these atomic explosions. ”

“ During the Middle Ages the desire to find a way to convert a base metal like lead into gold was the outstanding incentive for research in chemistry. When the important role of the nucleus in determining the chemical properties of an atom became clear and the natural transmutation accompanying 11 radioactivity was understood, the fascinating idea occurred to many people that perhaps man would soon be able to alter the nucleus of a stable atom and thus deliberately convert one element into another. ”

“ This demonstration that energy was released in any shift away from either extreme of the list of atoms according to atomic number fits the case of radioactivity, where very massive nuclei break down to somewhat less massive ones. ”

“ It is the 'Terrestrian.' But now, if we want to make that one factor upset the whole equation, we have to calculate how to make its value a maximum, and to do that we have to know every other factor in the equation. I have suggested two weapons they will have, the cathode rays and the heat ray. They will, of course, have others; they will have atomic bombs, and I am sure that they will find us so dangerous that they will be willing to lose a ship and crash us. ”

“ What is really taking place is a transmutation of one element into another, from a heavier to a lighter. The element uranium spontaneously becomes radium, and radium passes through a number of other stages until it, in turn, becomes lead. Each descending element is of lighter atomic weight than its predecessor. The changing process, of course, is a very slow one. It may be that all matter is radio-active, or can be made so. This raises the question whether all the matter in the universe may not undergo disintegration. ”

“ The more massive nuclei are all radioactive.
The manner of radioactive breakdown fits the theory, too. Suppose a nucleus gives off an alpha particle. The alpha particle is a helium nucleus made up of 2 protons and 2 neutrons. If a nucleus loses an alpha particle, its mass number should decline by 4 and its atomic number by 2, and that is what happens.
Suppose a nucleus gives off a beta particle. For a moment, that might seem puzzling. If the nucleus contains only protons and neutrons and no electrons, where does the beta particle come from? ”

“ First--encourage world-wide investigation into the most effective peace time uses of fissionable material, and with the certainty that they had all the material needed for the conduct of all experiments that were appropriate;
Second--begin to diminish the potential destructive power of the world's atomic stockpiles;
Third--allow all peoples of all nations to see that, in this enlightened age, the great powers of the earth, both of the East and of the West, are interested in human aspirations first, rather than in building up the armaments of war;
Fourth--open up a new channel for peaceful discussion, and initiate at least a new approach to the many difficult problems that must be solved in both private and public conversations, if the world is to shake off the inertia imposed by fear, and is to make positive progress toward peace. ”

“ Differences of magnitude, of space, and of time, which overwhelm our feeble imaginations, vanish before the unity of plan of the Creator's thought. A crystalline molecule, which will [388] not affect the finest balance, is a world, with an equator and poles of its own, and its central atom round which atomic satellites gravitate. Whether these atoms are infinitely small or infinitely great, whether the time of their revolutions is measured by thousandths of a second or by myriads of years, is of little importance so far as their gravitation (ponderation, or poising) is concerned. ”

“ There is no doubt that it will prove a very difficult task to bring about the transmutation of matter under ordinary terrestrial conditions. The enormous evolution of energy which accompanies the transformation of radioactive matter affords some indication of the great intensity of the forces that will be required to build up lighter into heavier atoms. On the point of view outlined in these lectures, the building up of a new atom will require the addition to the atomic nucleus of either the nucleus of hydrogen or of helium, or a combination of these nuclei. ”

“ The result is that the atom loses energy, which spreads out in a wave just like a light-wave. But when heavy atoms are concerned, the great charge on the nucleus causes the time of revolution of the nearer electrons to be much less than in the case of hydrogen. Roughly speaking, the number of revolutions per second in an orbit having given quantum numbers will increase as the square of the atomic number of the element concerned. ”

“ Isotopes are variant forms of atoms of the same element.
[5] Nuclides is a term used to describe all the forms of all the atoms. Radionuclides are radioactive nuclides.
[6] An ecosystem is a natural community, taken as a whole, including all biological and environmental factors.
[7] Ecologists are scientists concerned with the interrelations of organisms and their environments.
[8] A thermonuclear device is an explosive, such as a hydrogen bomb, based on a fusion reaction. In other atomic weapons the energy is derived from nuclear fission.
[9] The living organisms. ”

“ In a historic lecture delivered in Washington, D. C., in April 1914, Rutherford said, “It is possible that the nucleus of an atom may be altered by direct collision of the nucleus with very swift electrons or atoms of helium (i.e., beta or alpha particles) such as are ejected from radioactive matter.... Under favorable conditions, these particles must pass very close to the nucleus and may either lead to a disruption of the nucleus or to a combination with it.” ”

“ One more piece of information must be fitted into the story of the atom before it becomes clear why some people began to realize during the 1920s that atomic nuclei contain vast stores of energy that might some day revolutionize civilization. This last item has to do with a nuclear phenomenon known as the packing fraction.
Since any nucleus consists of a certain number of protons and neutrons, it seems logical that the total weight of the nucleus could be determined by adding together the individual weights of the particles in it. ”

“ Remember that as the velocity of the electrons approaches that of light, the mass increases and so the electrons as shot from a cathode ray rocket may weigh as much as a milligram. The problem of propulsion then is not hard with atomic energy to supply the terrific voltages needed to run the tube. But the cathode rays are going to be their first weapon. Cathode rays are absorbed by any object they hit, and their terrific energy is converted to heat. ”

“ Thus the Alpha and Beta rays result from the fragmentation of atoms. Gamma-rays are a radiation analogous to light, which accompanies the cataclysm of the atomic transformation. They are very penetrating, and are the ones most used in the therapeutic methods so far developed. [13]
We can see in all this that radio elements form families, in which each member derives from a preceding member by direct descent the primary elements being uranium and thorium. We can in particular prove that radium is a descendant of uranium, and that polonium is a descendant of radium. ”

“ It is difficult, however, to conceive of any way in which a sudden liberation of atomic energy could have been brought about by any terrestrial agency; so that the first theory, though able to account for the facts, seems to be the less tenable of the two. ”

“ Do they not also indicate that any alteration in the specific gravity of the atom would give rise to a new series of compounds, thus apparently producing a new element? Surely there is nothing irrational in the idea that the influences of heat or electricity, or of other powers of which as yet we know nothing, may be sufficient to effect such changes in the atomic constituents of this earth.
The combination of elementary atoms takes place under the influence of an unknown force which we are compelled to express by a figurative term, affinity. ”

“ We have seen that the view, so strongly supported by recent experiments, that the atoms of the elements are aggregations of simpler systems, involves the admission that losses or gains of mass or weight must occur in the formation of the heavier atoms. But we know that the ratio of mass to weight is the same for all substances, from hydrogen, the lightest, up to uranium, the heaviest, and even, as Southern's experiments on uranium and my own on radium have shown, for radio-active substances. ”

“ For instance, although we have never heard of any progress being made along such lines, it has been pointed out repeatedly that synthesis of a radio-active element of very high atomic weight would theoretically yield an almost perfect accumulator—one many thousands of times as efficient as ours in mass-to-energy ratio. Then, too, you realize, of course, that there is a bare possibility that intra-atomic energy may not be absolutely impossible. ”

“ We see that changes in the atom large enough to change the chemical character of the atom, i.e. to split an atom of one element up into different kinds of atoms, involve enormous transformations of energy; in fact the explosion of the atom in a few pounds of material might be sufficient to shatter a continent. We are living in the midst, nay, are made up of quiescent volcanoes ”

“ We have no reason to think that the stage we have now reached in the release of atomic energy will be the last. Indeed, the speed of our scientific and technical progress over the last seven years shows no signs of abating. We are being hurried forward, in our mastery of the atom, from one discovery to another, toward yet unforeseeable peaks of destructive power. ”

“ For example, slow positive particles pick up electrons, become neutral, and lose their ability to cause nuclear transformations. Slow neutrons, on the other hand, can enter nearly all atomic nuclei and induce fission of certain of the heavier ones. It is, in fact, these properties of the neutron which have made possible the utilization of atomic energy.
With these tools, researchers were not long in accurately identifying the missing elements 43, 61, 85, and 87 and more—indeed, the list of new elements, isotopes, and particles now seems endless. ”

“ The amount of energy required to break up an atom has a very important bearing on the problem of splitting up the atom, in other words the transmutation of the elements by physical means. We know that the atoms of the radio-active elements break up spontaneously, and give rise to atoms of another kind. Thus radium emanation splits up into helium and radium A, and radium A again splits up. ”