BATTLE OF THE ALCHEMISTS COMPTON 275 



its own weifjlit of water from freeziiicf to boiling temperature every 

 hour. By the end of 2,000 years it will be only half used up. By 

 the time it is completely transmuted into its final products, helium 

 and lead, any given amount of radium will have generated an amount 

 of heat equal to that from the combustion of 500,000 times its weight 

 of coal. One pound of radium gives off enough energy to heat to 

 boiling more than 13,000 tons of melted ice. 



At first sight it appeared that here was at last in sight the goal of 

 the alchemists. But alas there was one difiiculty, the process is so 

 slow. Suppose you have a gram of radium (which is a notable 

 amount). You would have to wait 2,000 years to get half of its 

 energy, another 2,000 years to get half of what is left, and so on. 

 By that time you and your grandchildren will long have ceased to 

 w^orry about a source of heat. Great as it is, the energy comes off 

 so slowly that it leaks away and cannot be stored up for use when 

 wanted. As a practical source of energy it is useless. Alchemists 

 and others have tried every physical and chemical agency that they 

 could devise in an effort artificially to speed up radioactive processes, 

 but without avail. The process of radioactive transmutation pro- 

 ceeds in its own characteristic slow and sure manner most provok- 

 ingly unaffected by man's best, but puny, efforts. 



There are, however, some very decided rays of hope, for artificial 

 transmutation has been produced in three distinct ways on a small 

 scale. One of these dates back to about the time of the war, wdiile 

 the others have both been achieved within the past couple of years. 



During the w^ar I was charged with arranging for the demonstra- 

 tion of a French device for locating submarines for the benefit of 

 British and American scientists who were engaged in the same prob- 

 lem. One of the British experts w^as Sir Ernest Kutherford. He 

 sent word by the late Professor Bumstead, however, that he would 

 be delayed through the necessity of completing certain laboratory 

 experiments in which he thought that he had split hydrogen nuclei 

 into tw^o parts. " If this is true ", he said, " its ultimate importance 

 is far greater than that of the war." With true scientific caution, 

 however, he asked us to keep this matter confidential, since he was 

 not yet sure of his interpretation. This caution w\is justified, for 

 his subsequent work showed that he had not broken up hydrogen 

 nuclei; but what he did find was equally significant — he had suc- 

 ceeded in knocking protons out of the nuclei of nitrogen, aluminum, 

 and various other light atoms. This was the first success in man's 

 long struggle by his own efforts to change one chemical element into 

 another. 



Rutherford's success came not by luck and persistence, but by 

 trained physical insight and persistence. Realizing that the possi- 



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