POPULAR SCIENCE 



THE ROMANCE OP RADIUM. Will England or Germany 

 control this Commodity after the "War? By G. W. C. Kaye, 

 Head of the Radium Department, National Physical Laboratory, Ted- 

 dington, and in charge of the " British Radium Standard." 



As in diplomatic and commercial spheres of activity, so also 

 in the field of scientific research, Germany has, particularly of 

 recent years, proved an increasingly formidable rival to this 

 country. And nowhere perhaps has this been so markedly 

 exhibited as in the spade-work necessary to discover and exploit 

 the curative properties of radium. It should be our business, 

 when normal conditions are reached, to extend our operations 

 in this very important matter. 



The story of radium and its discovery is tinged with the 

 spirit of romance. It is a story unequalled in the world's 

 history as radium stands unequalled at present among the 

 world's metals. Looking back, from the laboratory of Prof. 

 Curie, down a long vista of years one can trace the gradual 

 evolution of a scientific certainty out of the half-formed and 

 crude beliefs of the Middle Ages. 



From Figment to Fact 



First, working from that period in our history, we find the 

 alchemist, an object of considerable persecution, and yet 

 obstinately pursuing his objective with a remarkable faith, 

 busily striving to transmute the elements. His motive was not 

 perhaps of the loftiest, since it confined itself to a realisation of 

 profit by turning the baser metals into the nobler. Yet that 

 motive represented the foundation upon which was built 

 presently the discovery of radium. 



Then we arrive at the advent of chemistry as an ordered 

 science, the foundation stones of which were the immutable 

 and completely independent chemical elements. The orthodox 

 followers of chemistry did not press to experiment the notion of 



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