m REFORMED CONCEPT OF MATTER 41 



(Hydrogen) and complex (Helium) nuclei. The number of 

 revolving electrons in an element always corresponds to the 

 number of unsatisfied positive units in the nucleus, which 

 is called the atomic number of the element, and which is 

 always an integer; and thus the atomic numbers of 

 the elements run from i in the case of Hydrogen to 2 in 

 the case of Helium, 3 in the case of Carbon, and so on to 

 92 in the case of Uranium, the heaviest of all the known 

 elements. Of these 92 possible elements, 5 or 6 have not yet 

 been isolated, although their atomic numbers and weights 

 and positions in the Periodic Table and their approximate 

 properties are known.^ Atomic weights are in every case 

 integers, the apparent exceptions being cases where we 

 have to do with isotopes or elements of which the 

 atoms are not all identically the same but slightly dif- 

 ferent in their electron contents. Thus the New Physics 

 has incidentally explained the mystery of the Periodic 

 Table. 



The mystery of the atom has now largely narrowed down 

 to the nucleus, which consists of an inner revolving system 

 of protons of which comparatively little is known except 

 that they rotate round their centre with an enormous velocity 

 — probably not much less than that of light — and that the 

 quantum law as well as the mass law of Relativity holds 

 with regard to them. As space or volume contracts with 

 velocity in Space-Time, the mass of the nucleus increases 

 with high speeds out of all proportion to its size, and 

 the positive nucleus of the atom is therefore its virtual mass, 

 the rest of the atom being either empty space or very light 

 insubstantial electrons. Owing to its massiveness the nucleus 

 of protons is therefore coming to be identified with matter, 

 as if matter were ultimately only high-speed densely massed 

 positive electricity. The proton may thus yet prove to he 

 the fundamental unit of matter. The significance of this 

 view is that it reduces matter simply to a form of energy, . 



* If the claims to the recent discoveries of Hafnium, Masurium, 

 and Rhenium are allowed only a couple of further elements await 

 discovery. 



