Decomposing the Atom.

ATOMS; CONSTITUTION of matter; CHEMISTRY; DALTON, John; ALPHA rays; RADIATION; RADIUM

According to the author transmutation sought through the ages," as the daily press has it, is too large a word to apply to the present subatomic powers. Disintegration is certain, decomposition is just becoming recognized, but integration and synthesis are nearly as far off as ever. The cautious chemist may still say that matter "acts as if" it were atomic in structure. That has been evident since the researcher John Dalton's "New System of Chemical Philosophy" appeared in 1810. It was the alpha particle which opened the subatomic world to investigation. Ten years elapsed after the discovery of radium in 1898 before the nature of the alpha particle was definitely known, an atom of helium projected from the radium atom with one-tenth the velocity of light, or about 18,000 miles a second.