428 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION B. 
transforming energy from some external source to which ordinary substances 
fail to respond and being thereby stimulated to decompose, is at present 
out of favour, although perhaps more in accordance with its peculiar 
behaviour. * 
The liberation of helium as a product of radio-active change is in itself a 
significant fact, in view of the possibility that helium may be an element 
of intense activity. Nothing in connexion with the problem is more sur- 
prising, however, than the apparent production, in course of time, of a 
whole series of degradation products which differ greatly in stability—such 
behaviour is.entirely without precedent and not at all becoming in elements. 
No such remarkable and inspiring problem has ever before been offered 
for solution. Wecan only wonder at the results and admire the genius which 
some have displayed in interpreting them, Rutherford in particular. Yet 
outsiders may well hold judgment in suspense for the present: whilst it 
is permitted to workers to make use of hypothesis in every possible way in 
extending inquiry, the public are in no wise called upon to accept such 
hypothesis as fact. 
But apart from the suggestion that elements may give rise to others 
spontaneously, we have been entertained of late with stories of elements 
being converted into others under the influence of the energy let loose by 
the breakdown of radium. There is reason, however, to suppose that the 
powers of radium may have been greatly overpainted ; energy of almost any 
degree of intensity in the form of high tension electricity is now at our 
disposal and the effect which radium produces on living tissues, glass, &c., 
is of the same character as that effected by the Réntgen ray discharge, the 
only difference being that the effect is produced somewhat more rapidly ; 
it is not to be imagined, therefore, that the discovery of radium has put 
any very novel intensity of power into our hands. 
It is right that the public should understand that the statements pub- 
lished have been based on preliminary observations which lack verification, 
such as would never have been divulged in days gone by when a sterner sense 
of duty pervaded our ranks. Until the elementary nature of radium has 
been placed beyond question, we must hold judgment in suspense even as to 
the possibility of ‘elements’ undergoing decomposition ‘ spontaneously ’ ; 
at present, the possibility of elements being decomposed or transmuted by 
means of radium need not be entertained until evidence is forthcoming of 
a more convincing character than that with which we have been favoured. 
We have been living in a time of sensational discovery—in a period 
when advertisement is favoured and the desire for notoriety rampant. 
Unhappily that caution which appeared to be regarded as a priceless 
1 T may here put on record the opinion Lord Kelvin expressed on this question 
in a letter to me dated September 13, 1906 :— 
‘Ever since, nearly four years ago, we heard of the hundred calories per hour 
given out by radium, I have had on my mind the question of some possible 
mechanism such as that which you suggest by which energy from surrounding 
matter (far or near) could automatically come into radium to supply the energy of 
the heat which it gives out. The more I think of the question the less I see of 
that possibility. At present I can see nothing else than that the energy given out is 
taken from a previously existing store of potential energy of repulsive force be- 
tween separable constituents of radium. 
‘The ‘disintegration of the radium atom”’ is wantonly nonsensical. It is 
nonsense very misleading and mystifying to the general public, because, if what 
is at present called radium can be broken into parts, it is not an atom. 
‘“ Energy of an atom ’’ implies a thorough misunderstanding of the meaning 
of the word energy, which is capacity for doing work. 
‘T admire most sincerely and highly the energy of the workers in Radioactivity 
and the splendid experimental results which they have already got by resourceful 
and inventive experimental skill and laborious devotion. I feel sure that as things 
are going on we shall rapidly learn more and more of the real truth about radium.’ 
? 
