Ill REFORMED CONCEPT OF MATTER 43 



element called Radium Emanation; and so on until 

 eight Helium atoms have been expelled, when Lead will be 

 reached. If the process of expulsion could be continued, 

 Mercury will next be reached, and next after that Gold. 

 The alchemists were then not so far out when they guessed 

 that Mercury could be transmuted into gold! Unfortunately 

 (or rather I should say fortunately as a citizen of the 

 greatest gold-producing country) this spontaneous break- 

 up of matter has not yet been observed to proceed beyond 

 lead. And the artificial break-up of matter in the labora- 

 tory has only just begun in the experiments of Sir Ernest 

 Rutherford, who by bombarding Nitrogen gas with a. 

 particles from Radium C has succeeded in splitting the 

 Nitrogen atom into Hydrogen atoms and a residual apparent 

 combination of Helium nuclei which might result in Carbon 

 according to the Periodic Table, but which is more likely to 

 split up into Helium atoms. To what extent this artificial 

 destruction of the elements is possible, and whether, if 

 possible, it would be economically feasible, are questions for 

 the future to answer. 



We have seen that the positive charges of the nucleus have 

 to be balanced by the corresponding number of negative 

 electrons grouped in their orbits round the nucleus. On the 

 number and grouping of these planetary electrons the exter- 

 nal physical and chemical properties of the atom will depend. 

 If the orbits followed impose a strain on the equilibrium of 

 the atom, a quantum adjustment to a different orbit will be 

 made. If the number of electrons and their orbit distribu- 

 tions produce complete equilibrium the atom will be very 

 stable internally and inert or inactive externally; it will 

 belong to one of the inert group (Helium, Argon, Neon, 

 Krypton). On either side of this inert group of elements in 

 the Periodic Table we find elements whose atoms have one 

 electron too many or too few; in other words, they are not 

 internally in equilibrium and have a negative or positive 

 charge unsatisfied; they will therefore combine with any 

 other element which has an opposite charge unsatisfied. At 

 another remove from the inert elements in the Periodic Table 



