288 INTRA-ATOMIC ENERGY. 



• 

 is .sufficient to lightly touch ;vu iron wire with tli(^ tino-er to cause it to 



become at once the seat of an electric current. It is known that at a 



distance of hundreds of kilometers the Hertzian waves, whose energy 



at such distances is infinitely feeble, profoundly modify the structure 



of the metals that they reach, since they change in a marked degree 



their electric couductibility. On this phenomenon wireless telegraphy 



is based. Various physicists admit that under the influence of these 



waves metals instantly undergo allotropic transformations analogous 



to those that light produces in certain bodies, notabl}" phosphorus 



and sulphur. 



This extraordinary sensitiveness of matter, so contrary to what 

 conunon ()]>servation seemed to indicate, becomes more and more 

 familiar to physicists, and this is why an expression like ''the life 

 of matter,'' devoid of sense only twenty-five years ago, is now in cur- 

 rent use. The study of Innite matter re\'eals more and more proper- 

 ties that formerly seemed the exclusive endowment of living beings. 

 M. Bose, investigating the fact that '"the mostgenei'al and delicate sign 

 of life is the response to an electric curnMit," proved that this electric 

 response, " considered generally as the effect of an unknown vital 

 force," exists in matter. He shows also ])y ingenious experiments'^ 

 "the fatigue" of metals and its disappearance after repose, the action 

 of chemical excitants and depressants, the action of poisons on these 

 same metals, etc. 



Till' disftoci((tiiiii of (doiun iind the disappearance of matter. — Until 

 ver}' recently the indestructibility of the elements that compose mat- 

 ter was considered as the most fundamental dogma v)f chemistry. 



Nor was it vulgar o})servation alone that taught this; all the experi- 

 ments of chemistry had only served to confirm it since, throughout all 

 the transformations that matter might undergo, its mass, measured by 

 its weight, remained in\'ariable. This invarialjility of mass had even 

 come at last to be the oidy truly irreducible characteristic of matter — 

 that is to say, the only one that appeared to be independent of the 

 influences of the environment. The other properties, being always 

 conditioned l)y the environment, appeared to ))e simple relations. 



I have recalled in this ])aper and examined in detail in a preceding 

 one the facts demonstrating that matter can ])e dissociated, and conse- 

 quently that its mass can not be considered as an invariable cjuantity. 

 It is needless to return to this now. Let us consider the fact as 

 estal)lished and try to explain it. 



The explanation will necessarily be hypothetical, as the conception 

 upon which it rests is an hypothesis. According to our present ideas 

 regarding the constitution of atoms, each of them may l)e considered 

 as a veritable solar S3^stem comprising a central part, around which 

 turn with great velocity' at least a thousand particles and sometimes 



"Journal de Physique, August, 1902. 



