CHAPTER III. 

 INTRA-ATOMIC ENERGY. 



March, 1903, was an historic date for chemistry. It is, 

 also, as we shall show, a date to which, in all probability, 

 the men of the future will often refer as the veritable be- 

 ginning of the larger powers and energies that they will 

 control. It was in March, 1903, that Curie and Laborde 

 announced the heat-emitting power of radium. The fact 

 was simple of demonstration and unquestionable. They 

 discovered that a radium compound continuously emits 

 heat without combustion or change in its molecular struc- 

 ture. The heat emitted is sufficient to maintain the tem- 

 perature of the radium 1.5 degrees Centigrade, or about 

 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, above that of its surroundings. 

 It is all just as surprising as though Curie had discovered 

 a red-hot stove which required no fuel to maintain it in 

 heat. Stated in another way, one gram of radium com- 

 pound emits 100 gram-calories of heat per hour. This 

 means that every hour it emits enough heat to raise its own 

 weight of water from the freezing-point to the boiling- 

 point. 



It is enough to raise its own weight of water one degree 

 in 36 seconds. In about 40 hours sufficient heat has been 

 evolved from the gram of radium to decompose its own 

 weight of water completely into its constituents, hydrogen 

 and oxygen. After the lapse of 10,000 hours (13.5 months) 

 there has been enough heat emitted to raise the temper- 

 ature of a million times its weight of water one degree. 

 (172) 



