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actinium active deposit amount atomic weight Avogadro's constant Brownian movement canal rays charge carried chemical cloud cubic centimetre curves decay deflected detected diameter direct discovery droplets earth effect electric field electron elements energy equilibrium ether experiment experimental fact fall to half-value fluorescent formula gases Geiger gives glass grains gram of radium half value heat helium hydrogen atom ionic charge ionizing ions J. J. Thomson kathode rays known light liquid magnetic field mass means measured method microns milligram millimetre million minute Mme Curie molecular motion negative charge number of molecules observed obtained oxygen penetrating photographic plate polonium positive charge pressure properties radio-active radio-active changes radium bromide radium emanation ring Rutherford Rutherford and Soddy showed solution spectroscope spectrum speed ẞ particle ẞ ray substances temperature theory thorium emanation trace transformed uranium vacuum tube vapour velocity vessel wire X-rays
Popular passages
Page 113 - It seems, therefore, on the whole most probable that the sun has not illuminated the earth for 100,000,000 years, and almost certain that he has not done so for 500,000,000 years. As for the future, we may say, with equal certainty, that inhabitants of the earth cannot continue to enjoy the light and heat essential to their life, for many million years longer, unless sources now unknown to us are prepared in the great storehouse of creation.
Page 13 - We have seen that the very different circumstances in which different molecules of the same kind have been placed have not, even in the course of many ages, produced any appreciable difference in the values of these constants. If, then, the various processes of nature to which these molecules, have been subjected since the world began have not been able in all that time to produce any appreciable difference between the constants of one molecule and those of another, we are forced to conclude that...
Page 14 - In the present state of science, therefore, we have strong reason for believing that in a molecule, or if not in a molecule, in one of its component atoms, we have something which has existed either from eternity or at least from times anterior to the existing order of nature.
Page 13 - The formation of the molecule is therefore an event not belonging to that order of nature under which we live. It is an operation of a kind which is not, so far as we are aware, going on on earth or in the sun or the stars, either now or since these bodies began to be formed. It must be referred to the epoch, not of the formation of the earth or of the solar system, but of the establishment of the existing order of nature, and till not only these worlds and systems, but the very order of nature itself...
Page 37 - ... in quantities so minute as to be far beyond . the reach of the chemical balance or even of the spectroscope.
Page 136 - ... varying electric field, and, therefore, of a certain amount of energy which is proportional to the square of the velocity. This causes the charged body to behave as if its mass were increased by a quantity, which for a charged sphere is £e2//na ('Recent Researches in Electricity and Magnetism'), where e is the charge and a the radius of the sphere.
Page 45 - ... proportion of uranium contained, ie two-fifths of the activity of uranium. The natural mineral was thus five times as active as the artificial, a result that could only be explained by the existence of some impurity far more active than uranium itself. The Austrian Government presented M. and Mme Curie with a ton of uranium residues from the State manufactory at Joachimsthal, and there ensued a long and laborious search for the suspected trace of impurity. Endless precipitations and fractional...
Page 12 - It is also qualitatively permanent as regards its degree of implication, whether " knottedness " on itself or " linkedness " with other vortex rings. At the same time it is capable of infinite changes of form, and may execute vibrations of different periods, as we know that molecules do. And the number of essentially different implications of vortex rings may be very great without supposing the degree of implication of any of them very high.