Atomism

“ Many indications seem to point to such primary elements which are more simple in number and quality, and investigators even mention an element—hydrogen—in the direction of which we have to look for the way that will lead us to those primitive elements of matter. The divergency of aims, finally, consists in the fact that physical atomism prevailingly points to a conformity of the atoms of bodies ”

“ The atoms, the very electrons of all matter in the universe, are breaking down or building up. All changing. All are nothing but manifestations of Energy. And Matter itself? Take a fragment of solid gold—we find it built of loosely massed molecules, all in movement; and each molecule a group of agitated atoms; and each atom, whirling electrons and a nucleus—infinitely tiny things to which we give these arbitrary names—things which in themselves in their essence are nothing at all save Energy! ”

“ An atom is born!
"By a similar process—which I may liken to that of putting off an evil day which some time must be endured—the atoms group themselves into molecules. In their turn the molecules go forth to war, capturing or being captured; the vibrations of the slaves always being forced to synchronise with those of their conquerors. The nucleus of the gas of a primal metal is now complete, and the [118] foundation of a solar system—paltry molecule of the Universe as it is—is laid. ”

“ Lastly, we know that there are regions in the atom, probably the most interesting of all, about which we know little or nothing, whose investigation will provide intensely interesting work for many generations of physicists, who will most assuredly have no reason to be 'mournful that no new wonder may betide'. No fact discovered about the atom can be trivial, nor fail to accelerate the progress of physical science, for the greater part of natural philosophy is the outcome of the structure and mechanism of the atom. ”

“ The atomic theory is one of the most splendid generalizations in the whole circle of sciences. As a working hypothesis its aid is invaluable, and the solution it affords of the most intricate combination of the elements, truly marvelous. Yet it is a conjecture; the existence of the atom a guess. No one ever saw, tasted, or felt the atom. It is absolutely beyond the senses, as it is beyond any instrumental aid thereto. The entire structure of physical science, as expounded to-day, rests on conjecture, the only evidence in support of which is that it explains the phenomena. ”

“ And we know now that the atom, that once we thought hard and impenetrable, and indivisible and final and—lifeless—lifeless, is really a reservoir of immense energy. That is the most wonderful thing about all this work. A little while ago we thought of the atoms as we thought of bricks, as solid building material, as substantial matter, as unit masses of lifeless stuff, and behold! ”

“ The properties of the atom may thus be divided into two classes; in one class we have the properties, such as its weight and its Röntgen radiation, which are intrinsic to the atom, and which it carries with it unchanged into any compound of which it may be a constituent; in the other class we have the properties, such as the chemical properties of the atom, which depend upon its environment and upon the physical conditions, such as temperature, to which it is subjected. ”

“ Every atom can be distinguished by the charge of its nucleus. The simplest atom one can imagine would clearly be one with a single electron revolving around a nucleus having one unit of positive charge. Such an atom exists and is called hydrogen. An atom with a nucleus of charge two and two electrons revolving around it, is called helium; three, lithium ... six, seven, eight; carbon, nitrogen, oxygen ... 92, uranium. Atoms with almost all charges from one to 92 are found in nature, and practically none above 92 are found. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Every single thing in the world is made of atoms. Atoms are so tiny that there are only a few microscopes in the whole world powerful enough to show them. It would take about 20 million atoms to make a dot as big as this one over the letter i. In fact, if you had one atom for every single person in the states of Pennsylvania and California, you could fit them all on the head of a pin!
But, small as they are, atoms are the building blocks that make everything. You certainly don't look anything like an elephant—do you? But you are both made of atoms! ”

“ A carbon atom looks like every other carbon atom. But a hydrogen atom never looks like a carbon atom.
Atoms are like houses in still another way, too. Even though the building materials used in two houses or two atoms are the same, the finished structure of a house or an atom depends on the way the materials are arranged.
[Pg 26]
If an atom could be made large enough for you to see, you might think you were watching a satellite (or a fleet of satellites) going around and around one or more planets.
an atom
The planet—or center of the atom—is called the nucleus. ”

“ It is here that the chemist with his atomic theory of matter comes to our aid. He assures us that all matter consists in the last analysis of excessively minute particles, and that these particles are perpetually in motion. They unite with one another to form so-called molecules, but they are perpetually breaking away from such unions, even though they re-establish them again. Such activities of the atoms take place even in solids, but they are greatly enhanced when any substance passes from the solid into the liquid state. ”

“ Atomicity is but the way that chemical affinity acts in the atom. As the substance and form of the atom, as well as the force of atomicity which it exerts, must be affected to a greater or less extent by many forces in nature, as those of electricity, magnetism, the atomicity of other substances, and the like, the force of atomicity variously appears; although attraction, from which it is derived, is relatively uniform. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All earthly elements are composed of atoms which are forever breaking down and building up, but never destroying themselves. A match may be burned, but the atoms are still unchanged, having resolved themselves into smoke, carbon dioxide, ashes, and certain basic elements. It was clear to the professor that he could never accomplish his purpose if he were to employ one system of atomic structure, such as embalming fluid or other concoction, to preserve another system of atomic structure, such as the human body, when all atomic structure is subject to universal change, no matter how slow. ”

“ A philosopher has said that the atoms of oxygen and hydrogen are probably not nearer to each other in water than one hundred and fifty men would be if scattered over the surface of England, one man to four hundred square miles.
The atoms of the luminiferous ether are infinitely more diffused, and yet its interactive atoms can give four hundred millions of light-waves a second. And now, more preposterous than all, each atom has an attractive power for every other atom of the universe. ”

“ Nevertheless, it is a fact, and a comprehension of it will enable you to adjust yourself to other facts, one of which is that the Infinite Intelligent Energy compels each and every atom to assume its orderly relation to all other atoms. Further, that indeed, atoms are embryotic universes, each atom containing within itself all the properties which anywhere exist, and any one atom may [Pg 81] form the nucleus about which other atoms may congregate, until a world is in process of formation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The sum of the first two books, in which the principles of the atomic philosophy are methodically unfolded and illustrated, is, accordingly, to this effect:—that all things have their origin in, and are sustained by, the various combinations and motions of solid elemental atoms, infinite in number, various in form, but not infinite in the variety of their forms,—not perceptible to our senses, and themselves devoid of sense, of colour, and of all the secondary properties of matter. ”

“ The beauty of science is due to the fact that the correct answers to our most interesting questions have turned out to be surprising by their simplicity.
In order to understand an atom one must consider the distribution of electrons around one nucleus. In order to understand a molecule one has to consider the distribution of electrons around two or more nuclei. The chemical behavior of an atom is the manner in which it interacts with other atoms, and that means the precise way in which the electrons rearrange themselves when two or more atoms approach each other. ”

“ In truth there are atoms and a void." Those investigators attempted to connect all the differences which are observed between the qualities of things with differences of size, shape, position, and movement of atoms. They said that all things are formed by the coalescence of certain unchangeable, indestructible, and impenetrable particles which they named atoms; the total number of atoms is constant; not one of them can be destroyed, nor can one be created; when a substance ceases to exist and another is formed, the process is not a destruction of matter, it is a re-arrangement of atoms. ”

“ When the atom is evolved it becomes a centre of energy in the great atomic principle, and when it is finally dissolved it resolves itself back into its original state, and its life as an individual atom ceases, although the experience it has gained becomes the property of the entire principle. It is as if a body of water were to be resolved into millions of tiny dew-drops for a time, and each dew-drop was then to acquire certain outside material in solution. ”

“ To make room for these we have to remember that the atomic nucleus has remained entirely undefined and beyond our problem; so that what may occur, say when two molecules come into close relations, is outside physical science—not, however, altogether outside, for we know that when the vital nexus in any portion of matter is dissolved, the atoms will remain, in their number, and their atmospheres, and all inorganic relations, as they were before vitality supervened. ”

“ Really there are over a hundred different kinds of atoms. In my work on this ship I found it made quite a difference which kind of chlorine atom I had."
"Well, how does this machine work, and what do you mean by saying that a machine invented it?"
"Dave, you know that for a number of years the greatest advances in physics have been made along the lines of mathematical work in atomic structure. Einstein was the greatest of the mathematicians, and so the greatest of the atomicists. ”

“ When the missing atomic weight 0.0302 is multiplied by the square of the velocity of light according to Einstein’s theory, it is found to represent a tremendous amount of energy. Indeed, the energy released in forming a helium nucleus from two protons and two neutrons turns out to be seven million times that released when a carbon atom combines with an oxygen molecule to produce a molecule of carbon dioxide in the familiar process of combustion. ”

“ Can we retain the conception of the atom as formulated in the last century? Is matter an aggregate of impenetrable, indivisible nodules, or is an atom merely a centre of force? Have we nothing that we should call solid, [354] only vortices? Is solidity a flux of ions? ”

“ You cannot detach an atom from its holdings, or strip off from it the electricity, gravitation, chemic affinity, or the relation to light and heat, and leave the atom bare. No, it brings with it its universal ties.
Nature, like a cautious testator, ties up her estate [129] so as not to bestow it all on one generation, but has a forelooking tenderness and equal regard to the next and the next, and the fourth, and the fortieth age.
There lie the inexhaustible magazines. The eternal rocks, as we call them, have held their oxygen or lime undiminished, entire, as it was. ”

“ In one form of a theory which has rendered great service to physical science—I mean Planck's theory of the 'quantum'—the changes from radiant to kinetic energy are supposed to occur not continuously, but by definite steps, as would inevitably be the case if the energy were atomic in structure. ”

“ The only consideration which restrains us is our conception of its atomic constitution; and here, even, we have to seek aid from our notion of an atom, as something possessing in infinite minuteness, solidity, palpability, weight. Destroy the idea of the atomic constitution and we should no longer be able to regard the ether as an entity, or at least as matter. ”

“ The atoms of matter are vibrating or gyrating with extraordinary vigour. The piece of cold iron you hold in your hand, the bit of brick you pick up, or the penny you take from your pocket is a colossal reservoir of energy, since it consists of trillions of moving atoms. To realise the total energy, of course, we should have to witness a transformation such as we do in atoms of radio-active elements, about which we shall have something to say presently.
If we put a grain of indigo in a glass of water, or a grain of musk in a perfectly still room, we soon realise that molecules travel. ”