THE PRESENT CONCEPTION OF 



MATTER 



By H. spencer TOY, B.Sc. A.Inst.P. 

 Senior Mathematical and Science Master, Queen's College, Taunton 



For a great many years the dissipation of the world's available 

 energy has been going on at an ever-increasing rate. Wind- 

 mills, water-wheels, and human and animal labour have given 

 place to steam and petrol engines and to other forms of 

 mechanical power, with the result that the consumption of 

 energy in the last century has not merely been doubled or 

 trebled but has been increased almost indefinitely. 



Our available capital of energy has been captured from the 

 radiations of the sun by plants and stored in a chemical way as 

 coal, oil, peat, etc. It has taken countless ages to accumulate 

 and is limited in amount ; yet we use it as though the supply 

 were inexhaustible. As a matter of fact, some of the coal-fields 

 of the world have already come to an end, and it is estimated 

 that many of the oil-fields will last only a comparatively few 

 years more. On the other hand we have an annual income of 

 energy, in the form of wind and water power, that is not con- 

 verted into capital, and in the future we may be compelled 

 to have recourse to it again to a still greater extent. 



All forms of energy in general use are based on the atom as 

 unit, and may be called '• super-atomic." To transform heat, 

 for example, into mechanical power we have harnessed the 

 movements of the molecules of matter ; to produce heat we 

 have utilised the chemical affinities of atoms, and even when 

 electricity has been pressed into the service of man the atom 

 has still remained the fundamental entity. Our experience 

 has been summarised by the great doctrine of the Conservation 

 of Energy. 



But now the time has come when scientific research has 

 revealed the existence of a new capital of energy contained in 

 the atom itself, and known as " sub-atomic " energy, in com- 

 parison with which the stores of super-atomic energy are 

 merely trivial. Although we cannot draw upon this capital, 

 its discovery has revolutionised our conception of matter. 



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