HYPOTHESIS OF RADIANT MATTER 1 



THE enormous literature which has developed from the 

 discovery of radium and from the study of cognate pheno- 

 mena has made it increasingly difficult to form a calm 

 opinion upon the merits of all the claims which have been 

 advanced, and upon the validity of the theories which have 

 been based upon them. Undoubtedly, the great bulk of the 

 experimental data is exact, although time may show that 

 some of the results which were recorded before the technique 

 was fully developed may require correction. Without ques- 

 tioning in the slightest degree the experiments reported 

 by some of the skillful observers of modern times, one is, 

 nevertheless, permitted to hesitate in adopting hypotheses 

 that not only subvert formerly accepted ideas, but also seem, 

 in many cases, inconsistent with one another. 



The chemical world has been accused of accepting too dog- 

 matically the theory of the conservation of matter, the in- 

 divisibility of the atom, etc. Ought we not, then, to guard 

 ourselves against a similar fault in adopting newer views? 



I propose to take up seriatim the methods of reasoning 

 which have led to the present hypothesis of radiant matter 

 as expressed by its chief exponents, and to indicate some 

 points which seem to me to be inconsistent with older views, 

 or in conflict with one another; and I shall begin with what 

 may, from the present point of view, be called a static 

 phenomenon, the behavior of the atom toward light. It is 

 known that Lorentz modified Maxwell's electro-magnetic 



1 Extracts from a review presented to the New York Section of the American 

 Chemical Society at its meetings, November, 1907, and published in The Popular 

 Science Monthly, 73, p. 52, July, 1908. Reprinted by permission. 



