108 WHAT IS LIF E 



common phenomenon. It was so simple a thing as the 

 rubbing of amber that led Thales of Miletus (600 

 B. C.) to speculate on electricity. 



One of the most interesting of the phenomena of 

 ionization is the photoelectric effect, or the emission 

 of electrons caused by the influence of light. That 

 organic compounds may exhibit the photoelectric 

 effect, the experiments of Harry Clark clearly show. 



The ultimate in dissociation is yielded by hydrogen: 



Some atoms (some of the metals) have so strong 

 an affinity for oxygen that in water (H2O) they will 

 unite with the oxygen of a molecule of water, dis- 

 rupting the molecule and leaving the H2, which then, 

 in a disturbed condition, is readily ionized. The 

 positively charged hydrogen molecule (H2+-ion) is 

 a system that consists of two nuclei and one orbit 

 electron, or two positive electrons and one negative 

 electron. When this one orbital electron is farthest 

 away from the nucleus whose negative electron has 

 been lost, this nucleus (or positive electron) then, 

 being less tightly bound, again will readily be 

 carried away by outside agency of sufficient kinetic 

 energy. The positively charged hydrogen atom (H+) 

 consists of the hydrogen nucleus, or one positive 

 electron. 



It is, of course, well known that hydrogen ions 

 are found when acids are dissolved and dissociated in 



