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Chemistry for beginners

Chapter 30: INTRA-ATOMIC ENERGY
By Hereward Carrington
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Science - Chemistry/Biochemistry

About This Book

A concise introduction traces chemistry's development from ancient Greek and alchemical ideas through medieval practice to modern atomic theory and the periodic law. It explains elements, atomic weights, valency, analysis and synthesis, and differentiates organic and inorganic chemistry, including catalysis, enzymes, and hormones. Practical topics include spectroscopic methods, industrial chemistry, instruments, and ocean salinity. Later chapters address radioactivity, intra-atomic energy, electrons, astrophysical applications, and discussions on the origin of life and the philosophical implications connecting chemical theory with metaphysical questions.

INTRA-ATOMIC ENERGY

Professor E. Rutherford, of M’Gill University, Canada, was among the first to propose a new and startling theory. He said: Suppose that the atoms are not indivisible? Suppose that they are capable of being split-up into something still smaller and finer? If the atoms themselves are being disintegrated, immense quantities of energy would probably be available—“intra-atomic energy”—which would account for the results obtained. It is true that we should no longer have our stable atoms; they would vanish and be represented by something else. And that “something” would no longer be matter, in the sense that we now understand it; but we could account for the observed facts (radio-activity, etc.), and we can then endeavor to discover what atoms are resolved into later on. This theory was soon proved to be true; atoms were shown to be divisible, and capable of being split-up into something still smaller, which were no longer “matter” in the old sense. Matter, in short, had technically disappeared, and had been resolved into its component parts. This being so, the question at once arose: Of what is matter (the atom) composed?