THE UNDERLYING FACTS OF SCIENCE 571 



electron wlien it is energized. Atomic action and the behavior of 

 charged, or rather unbalanced, atoms, called ions, belong as much to 

 chemistry as to physics, but corpuscular motion is purely physical as 

 yet; it has no direct bearing that we know of on chemical reactions. 

 As regards the nature and dimensions of corpuscles, J. J. Thomson 

 has estimated them at one one-thousandth the mass of the hydrogen 

 atom. As regards speed of translation, many radiations composed of 

 electrons approximate the speed of light ; this represents almost nineteen 

 million times more activity than the one mile per minute ascribed by 

 Clausius to the hydrogen atom which has already been taken as a stand- 

 ard of comparison. There are some very interesting theories to be 

 derived from the study of electrons. 



The Atom and its Metamorphoses 

 The present theory of the atom as derived from radiology is that it 

 is composed of electrons moving rapidly in all directions and necessarily 

 in constant collision ; these electrons are assumed to be held together in 

 each individual atom by a positive force. Differences in the number of 

 electrons in an atom give rise to different elements. Imagine a glass 

 globe of about the same diameter as the dome of St. Peter's, in Rome, 

 with a quantity of grains of wheat shooting about inside in all direc- 

 tions, and acting and reacting by continual collision; the globe itself 

 represents the force which keeps the electrons within the compass of the 

 atom ; the grains of wheat represent the electrons. We can, if we wish, 

 assume that the electrons have orbital motions in relation to one 

 another, as regular as those of the planets ; it is only a difference in mass 

 and in speed, and the mass being so enormously smaller, it is not sur- 

 prising that the speed be so enormously higher, and, furthermore, there 

 is no reason for thinking that the same laws which regulate a solar 

 system may not regulate an atomic system. When the atom disinte- 

 grates it loses some of its electrons until a balanced system is reached, 

 and it can then bo assumed to be a stable atom, of a different element, 

 however, provided the loss of electrons was not complete. If the theory 

 of universal, or almost universal, disintegration and re-formation of 

 atoms is correct, there is a constant outpouring of electrons from all 

 atoms of matter, which even with a liberal allowance of units per second 

 would hardly amount to an appreciable difference in atomic character- 

 istics within historical periods of time, but which, premising a common 

 era of formation for terrestrial elements, might explain the fractional 

 discrepancies in atomic ratios ; if such a theory were true, the elements 

 as found in other worlds might have slightly different chemical con- 

 stants. 



As recently suggested by the author,^ if the atom is continually 



^Nature, February 18, 1909, p. 459. 



