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Gustave Le BON
The Evolution of Matter
The Walter Scott Publishing Co., Ltd. (London)
Ch. Scribner’s Sons (New York)
1909
Contents
Translator’s Preface
Book I
The New Ideas On Matter
Chapter I ~The Theory of Intra-Atomic Energy and the Passing-Away of Matter
(1) The New Ideas on the Dissociation of Matter --- Matter not indestructible --- Radioactivity universal property of matter --- Intra-atomic energy --- General Propositions ~ (2) Matter and Force --- Matter as a variety of energy --- All phenomena transformation of equilibrium --- Energy consequence of condensation of nebula ~ (3) Consequences of the vanishing of matter --- Nothing created, everything perishes --- Destruction of matter very slow --- Indestructibility of mass must go --- Possibly conservation of energy also --- Atoms planetary systems.
Chapter II ~ History of the Discovery of the Dissociation of Matter, and of Intra-Atomic Energy
Author’s discovery of Black Light --- Of radioactivity of all bodies --- M. Becquerel on the reflection, etc., of uranium rays --- Acceptance of the author’s theory by M.de Heen --- Unpopularity at outset --- Testimony of M. Dastre --- Of M. Poincare --- Of English writers --- M. de Heen’s comparison of the discovery of Black Light with that of x-rays --- M. Bohn’s appreciation.
Book II
Intra-Atomic Energy And The Forces Derived Therefrom
Chapter I ~ Intra-Atomic Energy: Its Magnitude
(1) The existence of intra-atomic energy --- Emission of particles with enormous speed by matter when dissociating --- Energy developed equal to that of 1,340,000 barrels of gunpowder --- This energy within not without the atom --- Its origin ~ (2) Estimate of quantity of energy in matter --- That contained in the smallest coin sufficient to send train more than four times around the Earth --- Other measurements by Rutherford, Abraham, and Thomson ~ (3) Forms of energy condensed in matter --- Kinetic energy in pinhead = 208,873,000,000 kilogram-meters ~ (4) Utilization of intra-atomic energy --- Useless at present because dissociation of matter cannot be hastened --- This difficulty overcome, power will be free to all.
Chapter II ~ Transformation of Matter Into Energy
Old idea that matter had nothing in common with energy --- Difficulty of upsetting this notion --- Lord Kelvin’s first view --- New ideas only make their way gradually --- Influence of prestige on scientific belief.
Chapter III ~ Forces Derived From Intra-Atomic Energy --- Molecular Forces, Electricity, Solar Heat, Etc.
(1) Origin of Molecular Forces --- Cohesion, chemical affinity, etc., only explicable as intra-atomic energy ~ (2) Origin of Electricity --- Constantly increasing importance of electricity --- Electricity form of infra-atomic energy set free by dissociation of matter ~ (3) Origin of Solar Heat --- Stars not necessarily cooling --- Heat lost by radiation may be compensated for by energy liberated in dissociation
Chapter IV ~ Objections To The Doctrine Of Intra-Atomic Energy
M. Poincare’s M. Painleve’s, and M. Naquet’s objection that no endothermic combination stable --- Answer: matter not stable since easily dissociated --- M. Gauthier’s confirmation of this --- M. Despaux’s objection: quantity of matter and energy in the world invariable --- Answer: facts about radium disprove this --- M. Duclaud and M. Laisant’s criticisms --- Prof. Re’s, Somerhausen’s, and Pio’s opinions --- Consequences of sudden dissociation of gram of radium --- Ann. Scientifique’s and M. Sagaret’s remarks.
Book III
The World Of The Imponderable
Chapter I ~ Classic Separation Between Ponderable and Imponderable --- Is There An Intermediate World?
Lavoisier’s Definitions and Berthelot’s Approval --- Larmor’s reconciliation of ether and nature --- Particles emitted during dissociation of matter the link with ether.
Chapter II ~ Immaterial Basis of Universe: The Ether
Importance of Ether in Physics --- Difficulty of defining its properties --- Not a gas --- Other opinions --- Imponderable but condensable --- Larmor’s opinion that material molecule only ether.
Chapter III ~ Different Equilibria In The Ether
All ethereal equilibria very unstable --- Vortex ring theory --- Explains gravitation --- M. Gautier’s opinions on this --- M. Benard’s experiments --- Matter a particular state of ethereal equilibrium.
Book IV
The Dematerialization of Matter
Chapter I ~ Interpretation of Dissociation Experiments
(1) The First Interpretations --- Crookes’ ultra-gaseous state --- Kinetic theory of gases described --- Cathode rays really identical with particles of dissociating matter ~ (2) Interpretations now current --- Discovery of x and uranium rays make old explanations untenable --- Ionization merely dissociation --- Contrasts between ordinary and ionic electricity --- Dissociation products identical for all substances.
Chapter II ~ Products of Dematerialization of Matter
(1) Classification of Above Products --- Classification necessary --- Can be divided into 6 classes ~ (2) Characteristics of Dissociation Elements: viz., emanation, positive and negative ions, electrons, cathode rays, and x-rays
Chapter III ~ Dematerialization of Specially Radioactive Substances
(1) Products of dematerialization of such substances ~ (2) Alpha rays or positive ions ~ (3) Beta rays or negative electrons ~ (4) gamma or x-rays ~ (5) Semi-material Emanations of Radioactive Substances ~ (6) Induced radioactivity. All these stages in return of matter towards ether.
Chapter IV ~ Dematerialization of Ordinary Bodies
(1) Causes of dematerialization – How dissociation proved ~ (2) Dissociation by light ~ (3) By Chemical reactions ~ (4) By electric action ~ (5) By combustion ~ (6) By heat ~ (7) Spontaneous dissociation ~ (8) Part played by dissociation in natural phenomena.
Chapter V ~ Artificial Equilibria Of Elements Produced By Dissociation
Possibility of photographing momentary equilibria --- Attractions and repulsions of dissociated particles --- Globular electricity --- The ionic fluid and its geometrical forms
Chapter VI ~ How Matter Can Dissociate
(1) Causes of modification of molecular and atomic structures --- Equilibria disturbed by slight but appropriate action – Acoustic analogy ~ (2) Mechanism of dissociation ~ (3) Causes of dissociation of very radioactive substances ~ (4) Does radium exist?
Book V
The Intermediate World Between Matter And Ether
Chapter I ~ Properties Of Substances Intermediate Between Matter And Ether
Only irreducible characteristic of matter mass --- Variation of mass in case of electric fluid --- Kaufmann and Abraham’s researched on this --- Particles real link between ponderable and imponderable.
Chapter II ~ Electricity A Semi-Material Substance
(1) Radioactive and Electrical Phenomena ~ (2) Elements emitted by Electric machine compared with emission of radioactive bodies --- Aggregates identical with alpha, beta, gamma rays --- Aggregates also give ultraviolet light --- Experiments with Dr Oudin.
Chapter III ~ Properties of Electric and Material Fluids Compared
Superior mobility of electric fluid --- Cornu’s analogies --- Neutral; electric fluid not observable --- Susceptibility to gravitation real distinction.
Chapter IV ~ Movements of Electric Particles
Example of electrified sphere at rest: no magnetic force --- In motion, magnetic force appears --- Acceleration of motion produces vibrations of ether ---Rowland’s and Zeeman’s experiments --- Electronic theory
Book VI
The World of Ponderability: Birth, Evolution, and
End of Matter
Chapter I ~ Constitution of Matter and Forces Which Maintain Material Edifices
(1) Former ideas on structure of atoms ~ (2) Current ideas on constitution of matter ~ (3) Magnitude of elements of matter ~ (4) Forces which maintain molecular structures ~ (5) Attractions, repulsions and equilibria of isolated molecules – Osmotic phenomena and Leduc’s experiments.
Chapter II ~ Variations of Material Equilibria With Change of Environment
(1) Mobility and sensibility of matter ~ (2) Variation of equilibria with change of medium --- Matter in incessant motion.
Chapter III ~ Various Aspects of matter
(1) Gaseous, liquid and solid states ~ (2) Crystalline state of matter and life of crystals --- Von Schron’s experiments --- Double generation of crystals.
Chapter IV ~ Unity of Composition of Simple Bodies
(1) Are all simple bodies formed from one element? ~ (2) Are simple bodies of unvarying fixity? --- Berthelot’s experiments --- Chemical species variable
Chapter V ~ Variability of Chemical Species
(1) Variability of simple bodies --- Author’s experiments on variation of elements by actions by presence --- Transmutation of elements ~ (2) Variability of compounds --- Action of caffeine and theobromine combined --- Modification of atomic equilibria possible.
Chapter VI ~ Chemical Equilibria of Material Substances
(1) Chemical equilibria of minerals ~ (2) Of organic substances --- Living being an aggregate of cells
Chapter VII ~ Intra-Atomic Chemistry and the Unknown Equilibria of Matter
(1) Intra-atomic chemistry ~ (2) Colloid metals ~ (3) Diastases, enzymes, toxins, and action by presence --- Catalyst liberators of energy ~ (4) Oscillating chemical equilibria.
Chapter VIII ~ Birth, Evolution and End of Matter
(1) Genesis and evolution of atoms --- Nebulae and the spectroscope --- Atom follows law of birth, growth, and death ~ (2) End of matter --- Electricity one its last stages, ethereal vibrations last of all ~ (3) Conclusions, recapitulation, and functions of hypothesis.
Second Part
Experimental Researches
Preliminary Notes
Chapter I ~ General Methods of Verifying Dissociation
Chapter II ~ Methods of Verifying Dissociation
by Light
Chapter III ~ Dissociation by Various Parts
of Spectrum
Chapter IV ~ Possibility of Rendering Ordinary
Matter Radioactive
Chapter V ~ Negative Leak Caused by Light
Chapter VI ~ Dissociation by Combustion
Chapter VII ~ Dissociation by Chemical Reactions
Chapter VIII ~ Dissociation of Very Radioactive Bodies [ Missing
Pages 381 +>]
Chapter IX ~ Ionization of Gases
Chapter X ~ Emanation of All Substances
Chapter XI ~ Absence of Radioactivity in Finely-Divided Bodies
Chapter XII ~ Variability of Chemical Species
Chapter XIII ~ Passage Through Matter of Dissociated Particles
Chapter XIV ~ Historical Documents
Papers by the Author Published in the Revue Scientifique
Index of Authors [Not included here]
Index of Subjects [Not included here]
List of Illustrations [Not included here]
Translator’s Preface
[Not included here]
This work is devoted to the study of the Evolution of Matter --- that is to say, of the fundamental components of things, of the substratum of the worlds and of the beings which exist on their surface.
It represents the synthesis of the experimental researches which I have during the last 8 years published in numerous memoirs. In their result they have shown the insufficiency of certain fundamental scientific principles on which rests the edifice of our physical and chemical knowledge.
According to a doctrine which seemed settled forever, and the building up of which has required a century of persistent labor, while all things in the universe are condemned to perish, two elements alone, Matter and Force, escape this fatal flaw. They undergo transformations without ceasing, but remain indestructible and consequently immortal.
The facts brought to light by my researches, as well as by those to which they have led, show that, contrary to this belief, matter is not eternal, and can vanish without return. They likewise prove that the atom is the reservoir of a force hitherto unrecognized, although it exceeds by its immensity those forces with which we are acquainted, and that it may perhaps be the origin of most others, notably of electricity and solar heat. Lastly, they reveal that, between the world of the ponderable and that of the imponderable, till now considered widely separate, there exists an intermediate world.
For several years I was alone in upholding these ideas. Finally, however, their validity has been admitted, after numbers of physicists have determined in various ways the facts I have pointed out, principally those which demonstrate the universality of the dissociation of matter. It was above all the discovery of radium, long after my first researches, that fixed attention on these questions.
Let not the reader be alarmed at the boldness of some of the views which will be set forth herein. They are throughout supported by experimental facts. It is with these for guides that I have endeavored to penetrate unknown regions, where I had to find my way in thick darkness. This darkness does not clear away in a day, and for that reason he who tries to mark out a new road at the cost of strenuous efforts is rarely called to look at the horizon to which it may lead.
It is not without prolonged labor and heavy expense that the facts detailed in this volume have been established (1). If I have not yet obtained the suffrages of all the learned, and if I have incensed many among them by pointing out the fragility of dogmas which once possessed the authority of revealed truths, at least I have met with some valiant champions amongst eminent physicists, and my researches have been the cause of many others. One can hardly expect more, especially when attacking principles some of which were considered unshakeable. The great Lamarck uttered no ephemeral truth when he said, “Whatever the difficulties in discovering new truths, there are still greater ones in getting them recognized”.
[(1) To make this book easier to read, the experiments in detail have been brought together at the end of the volume, to which they form a second part. All the plates illustrating the experiments have been drawn or photographed by my devoted assistant, M. F. Michaux. I here express my thanks to him for his daily assistance at my laboratory during the many years over which my researched have extended. I also owe hearty thanks to my friend E. Senechal, and the eminent Prof. Dwelshauvers-Dery, Corresponding Member of the Institute, who have kindly revised the proofs of this volume.]
3I should be armed with but scanty philosophy if I remained surprised at the attacks of several physicists, or at the exasperation of a certain number of worthy people, and especially at the silence of the greater number of the scholars who have utilized by experiments.
Gods and dogmas do not perish in a day. To try to prove that the atoms of all bodies, which were deemed eternal, are not so, gave a shock to all received opinions. To endeavor to show that matter, hitherto considered inert, is the reservoir of a colossal energy, was bound to shock more ideas still. Demonstrations of this kind touching the very roots of our knowledge, and shaking scientific edifices centuries old, are generally received in anger or in silence till the day when, having been made over again in detail by the numerous seekers whose attention has been aroused, they become so widespread and commonplace that it is almost impossible to point out their first discoverer.
It matters little, in reality, that he who has sown should not reap. It is enough that the harvest grows. Of all occupations which may take up the too brief hours of life, none perhaps is so worthy as the search for unknown truths, the opening out of new paths in that immense unknown which surrounds us.
The New Ideas On Matter
Chapter I
The Theory of Intra-Atomic Energy and of the Passing Away of Matter
1. The New Ideas on the Dissociation of Matter ~
The dogma of the indestructibility of matter is one of the very few which modern has received from ancient science without alteration. From the great Roman poet, Lucretius, who made it the fundamental element of his philosophical system, down to the immortal Lavoisier, who established it on bases considered eternal, this sacred dogma was never touched, and no one ever sought to question it.
We shall see in the present work how it has been attacked. Its fall was prepared by a series of earlier discoveries apparently unconnected with it: cathode rays, x-rays, emissions from radioactive bodies, etc., all have furnished the weapons destined to shake it. It received a still graver blow as soon as I had proved that phenomena at first considered peculiar to certain exceptional substances, such as uranium, were to be observed in all the substances in nature.
Facts proving that matter is capable of a dissociation fitted to lead it into forms in which it loses all its material qualities are now very numerous. Among the most important I must note the emission by all bodies of particles endowed with immense speed, capable of making the air a conductor of electricity, of passing through obstacles, and of being thrown out of their course by a magnetic field. None of the forces at present known being bale to produce such effects, particularly the emission of particles with a speed almost equaling that of light, it was evident that we here found ourselves in presence of absolutely unknown facts. Several theories were put forth in explanation of them. One only --- that of the dissociation of atoms, which I advanced at the commencement of these researches --- has resisted all criticism, and on this account is now almost universally adopted.
It is several years now since I proved by experiment for the first time that the phenomena observed in substances termed radioactive --- such as uranium, the only substance of that kind then known --- could be observed in all substances in Nature, and could only be explained by the dissociation of their atoms.
The aptitude of matter to disaggregate by emitting effluves of particles analogous to those of the cathode rays, having a speed of the same order as light, and capable of passing through material substances, is universal. The action of light on any substance, alighted lamp, chemical reactions of very different kings, an electric discharge, etc., cause these effluves to appear. Substances termed radioactive, such as uranium or radium, simply present in a high degree a phenomenon which all matter possesses to some extent.
When I formulated for the first time this generalization, though it was supported by very precise experiments, it attracted hardly any attention. In the whole world one physicists, the learned Prof. de Heen, alone grasped its import and adopted it after having verified its perfect correctness. But the experiments being too convincing to permit of a long challenge, the doctrine of the universal dissociation of matter has at last triumphed. The atmosphere is now cleared, and few physicists deny that this dissociation of matter --- this radioactivity as it is now called --- is a universal phenomenon as widely spread throughout the universe as heat or light. Radioactivity is now discovered in nearly everything, and in a recent paper Prof. J.J. Thomson has demonstrated its existence in most substances --- water, sand, clay, brick, etc.
What becomes of matter when it dissociates? Can it be supposed that when atoms disaggregate they only divide into smaller parts, and thus form a simple dust of atoms? We shall see that nothing of the sort takes place, and that matter which dissociates dematerializes itself by passing through successive phases which gradually deprive it of its material qualities until it finally returns to the imponderable ether whence it seems to have issued.
The fact once recognized that atoms can dissociate, the question arose as to whence they obtained the immense quantity of energy necessary to launch into space particles with a speed of the same order as light.
The explanation in reality was simple enough, since it is enough to verify, as I have endeavored to show, that, far from being an inert thing only capable of giving up the energy artificially supplied to it, matter is an enormous reservoir of energy --- intra-atomic energy.
But such a doctrine assailed too many fundamental scientific principles established for centuries to be at once admitted, and before accepting it various hypotheses were successively proposed. Accustomed to regard the rigid principles established for centuries to be at once admitted, and before accepting it various hypotheses were successively proposed. Accustomed to regard the first principles of thermodynamics as absolute truths, and persuaded that an isolated material system could possess no other energy than that supplied from without, the majority of physicists long persisted, and some still persist, in seeking outside it the sources of the energy manifested during the dissociation of matter. Naturally, they failed to discover it, since it is within, and not without, matter itself.
The reality of this new form of energy, of this intra-atomic energy of which I have unceasingly asserted the existence from the commencement of my researches, is in no way based on theory, but on experimental facts. Though hitherto unknown, it is the most powerful of known forces, and probably, in my opinion, the origin of most others. Its existence, so much contested at first, is more and more generally accepted at the present time.
From the experimental researches which I have detailed in various memoirs and which will be summarized in this work, the following propositions are drawn:
(1) Matter, hitherto deemed indestructible, vanishes slowly by the continuous dissociation of its component atoms.
(2) The products of the dematerialization of matter constitute substances placed by their properties between ponderable bodies and the imponderable ether --- that is to say, between two worlds hitherto considered as widely separate.
(3) Matter, formerly regarded as inert and only able to give back the energy originally supplied t it, is, on the other hand, a colossal reservoir of energy --- intra-atomic energy --- which it can expend without borrowing anything from without.
(4) It is from this intra-atomic energy manifested during the dissociation of matter that most of the forces in the universe are derived, and notably electricity and solar heat.
(5) Force and matter are two different forms of one and the same thing. Matter represents a stable form of intra-atomic energy; heat, light, electricity, etc., represent instable forms of it.
(6) By the dissociation of atoms --- that is to say, by the dematerialization of matter, the stable forms of energy termed matter is simply changed into those unstable forms known by the names of electricity, light, heat, etc.
(7) The law of evolution applicable to living beings is also applicable to simple bodies; chemical species are no more invariable than are living species.
For the examination of these several propositions a large part of this work will be reserved. Let us in this chapter take them as proved and seek at once the changes they bring about in our general conception of the mechanism of the universe. The reader will thus appreciate the interest presented by the problems to which this volume is devoted.
2. Matter and Force ~
The problem of the nature of matter and of force is one of those which have most exercised the sagacity of scholars and philosophers. Its complete solution has always escaped us because it really implies the knowledge, still inaccessible, of the First Cause of things. The researches I shall set forth cannot therefore allow is to completely solve this great question. They lead, however, to a conception of matter and energy far different from that in vogue at the present day.
When we study the structure of the atom, we shall arrive at the conclusion that it is an immense reservoir of energy solely constituted b y a system of imponderable elements maintained in equilibrium by the rotations, attractions and repulsions of its component parts. From this equilibrium results the material properties of bodies such as weight, form, and apparent permanence. Mater also represents movement, but the movements of its component elements are confined within a very restricted space.
This conception leads us to view matter as a variety of energy. To the known forms of energy --- heat, light, etc. --- there must be added another --- matter, or intra-atomic energy. It is characterized by its colossal greatness and its considerable accumulation within very feeble volume.
It follows from the preceding statements that by the dissociation of atoms, one is simply giving to the variety of energy called matter a different form --- such as, for example, electricity or light.
We will endeavor to give an account of the forms under which intra-atomic energy may be condensed within the atom, but the existence of the fact itself has a far greater importance than the theories it gives rise to. Without pretending to give the definition so vainly sought for if energy, we will content ourselves with stating that all phenomenality is nothing but a transformation of equilibrium. When the transformations of equilibrium are rapid, we call them electricity, heat, light, etc.; when the changes are slower, we give them the name of matter. To go beyond this we must wander into the region of hypothesis and admit, as do several physicists, that the elements of which the aggregate is represented by forces in equilibrium, are constituted by vortices formed in the midst of ether. These vortices possess an individuality, formerly supposed to be eternal, but which we know now to be but ephemeral. The individuality disappears, and the vortex dissolves in the ether as soon as the forces which maintain its existence cease to act.
The equilibria of these elements of which the aggregate constitutes an atom, may be compared to those which keep the planets in their orbits. So soon as they are disturbed, considerable energies manifest themselves, as they would were the earth or any other planet stayed in this course.
Such disturbances in planetary systems may be realized, either without apparent reason, as in very radioactive bodies when, for divers reasons, they have reached a certain degree of instability, or artificially, as in ordinary bodies when brought under the influence of various excitants --- heat, light, etc. These excitants act in such cases like the spark on a mass of powder --- that is to say, by freeing quantities of energy greatly in excess of the very slight cause which has determined their liberation. And as the energy condensed in the atom is immense in quantity, it results from this that to an extremely slight loss in matter there corresponds the creation of an enormous quantity of energy.
From this standpoint we may say of the various forms of energy resulting from the dissociation of material elements, such as heat, electricity, light, etc., that they represent the last stages of matter before its disappearance into the ether.
If, extending these ideas, we wish to apply them to the differences presented by the various simple bodies studied in chemistry, we should say that one simple body only differs from another by containing more or less intra-atomic energy. If we could deprive any element of a sufficient quantity of the energy it contains, we should succeed in completely transforming it.
As to the necessarily hypothetical origin of the energies condensed within the atom, we will seek for it in a phenomenon analogous to that invoked by astronomers to explain the formation of the sun, and of the energies it stores up. To their minds this formation is the necessary consequence of the condensation of the primitive nebula. If this theory be valid for the solar system, an analogous explanation is equally so for the atom.
The conceptions thus shortly summed up in no way seek to deny the existence of matter, as metaphysics has sometimes attempted to do. They simply clear away the classical duality of matter and energy. These are two identical things under two different aspects. There is no separation between matter and energy, since matter is simply a stable form of energy and nothing else.
It would, no doubt, be possible for a higher intelligence to conceive energy without substance, for there is nothing to prove that it necessarily requires a support, but such a conception cannot be attained by us. We can only understand things by fitting them into the common frame of our thoughts. The essence of energy being unknown, we are compelled to materialize it in order to enable us to reason thereon. We thus arrive --- but only for the purpose of demonstration --- at the following definitions: --- Ether and matter represent entities of the same order. The various forms of energy (electricity, heat, light, matter, etc.) are its manifestations. They only differ in the nature and the stability of the equilibria formed in the bosom of the ether. It is by those manifestations that the universe is known to us.
More than one physicist, the illustrious Faraday especially, has endeavored to clear away the duality existing between matter and energy. Some philosophers formerly made the same attempt, by pointing out that matter was only brought home to us by the intermediary of forces acting on our senses. But all arguments of this order were considered, and rightly, as having a purely metaphysical bearing. It was objected to them that it had never been possible to transform matter into energy, and that this latter was necessary to animate the former. Scientific principles, considered assured, taught that Nature was a kind of inert reservoir incapable of possessing any energy save that previously transmitted to it. It could no more create it than a reservoir can create the liquid it holds. Everything seemed then to point out that Nature and Energy were irreducible things, as independent of one another as weight is of color. It was therefore not without reason that they were taken as belonging to two very different worlds.
There was, no doubt, some temerity in taking up anew a question seemingly abandoned forever. I have only done so because my discovery of the universal dissociation of matter taught me that the atoms of all substances can disappear without return by being transformed into energy. The transformation of matter into energy being thus demonstrated, it follows that the ancient duality of Force and Matter must disappear.
3. Consequences of this Principle of the Vanishing of Matter ~
The facts summed up in the preceding pages show that matter is not equal, that it constitutes an enormous reservoir of forces, and that it disappears by transforming itself into other forms of energy before returning to what it is, nothingness.
It can therefore be said that if matter cannot be created, at least can it be destroyed without return. For the classical adage, "Nothing is created, nothing is lost" (attributed to Lavoisier) must be substituted the following: --- Nothing is created, but everything is lost. The elements of a substance which is burned or sought to be annihilated by any other means are transformed, but they are not lost, for the balance affords proof that their weight has not varied. The elements of atoms which are dissociated, on the contrary, are irrevocably destroyed. They lose every quality of matter, including the most fundamental of them all --- weight. The balance no longer detects them. Nothing can recall them to the state of matter. They have vanished in the immensity of the ether which fills space, and they no longer form part of our universe.
The theoretical importance of these principles is considerable. At the same time when the ideas I am upholding were not yet defensible, several scholars took pains to point out how far the time-honored doctrines of the everlasting nature of matte constituted a necessary foundation for science. Thus, for instance, Herbert Spencer in one of the chapters of First Principles, headed "Indestructibility of Matter", which he makes one of the pillars of his system, declares that, "Could it be shown, or could it with reason be supposed, that Matter, either in its aggregates or in its units, ever becomes non-existent, it would be needful either to ascertain under what conditions it becomes non-existent, or else to confess that true Science and Philosophy are impossible". This assertion certainly seems too far-reaching. Philosophy has never found any difficulty in adapting itself to new scientific discoveries. It follows, but does not precede them.
It is not only philosophers who declare the impossibility of assailing the dogma of the indestructibility of matter. But a few years ago the learned chemist Naquet, then Professor at the Faculte de Medicine of Paris, wrote, "We have never seen the ponderable return to the imponderable. In fact, the whole science of chemistry is based on the law that such a change does not occur, for if it did so, goodbye to the equations of chemistry!".
Evidently, if the transformation of the ponderable into the imponderable were rapid, not only must we give up the equations of chemistry, but also those of mechanics. However, from the practical point of view, none of these equations are yet in danger, for the destruction of matter takes place so slowly that it is not perceptible with the means of observation formerly employed. Losses in weight under the hundredth part of a milligram being imperceptible by the balance, chemists need not take them into account. The practical interest of the doctrine of the vanishing of matter, by reason of its transformation into energy, will only appear when means are found of accomplishing with ease the rapid dissociation of substances. When that occurs, an almost unlimited source of energy will be at man’s disposal gratis, and the face of the world will be changed. But we have not yet reached this point.
At the present time, all these questions have only a purely scientific interest, and are for the time as much lacking practical application as was electricity in the time of Volta. But this scientific interest is considerable, for these new notions prove that the only elements to which science has conceded duration and fixity are, in reality, neither fixed nor durable.
Everybody knows that it is easy to deprive matter of all its attributes, save one. Solidity, shape, color and chemical properties easily disappear. The very hardest body can be transformed into an invisible vapor. But, in spite of every one of these changes, the mass of the body as measured by its weight remains invariable, and always reappears. This invariability constituted the one fixed point in the mobile ocean of phenomena. It enabled the chemist, as well as the physicist, to follow matter through its perpetual transformations, and this is why they considered it as something mobile but eternal.
It is to this fundamental property of the invariability of mass that we had always to comeback. Philosophers and scholars long ago gave up seeking an exact definition of matter. The invariability of the mass of a given quantity of substance --- that is to say, its coefficient of inertia measured by its weight, remained the sole irreducible characteristic of matter. Outside this essential notion, all we could say of matter was that it constituted the mysterious and ever-changing element whereof the worlds and the beings who inhabit them were formed.
The permanence and, therefore, the indestructibility of mass, which one recognizes throughout the changes in matter, being the only characteristic by which this great unknown conception can be grasped, its importance necessarily became preponderant. On it the edifices of chemistry and mechanics have been laboriously built up.
To this primary notion, however, it became necessary to add a second. As matter seemed incapable by itself of quitting the state of repose, recourse was had to various causes, of unknown nature, designated by the term forces, to animate it. Physics counted several which it formerly clearly distinguished from each other, but the advance in science finally welded them into one great entity, Energy, to which the privilege of immortality was likewise conceded.
And it is thus that, on the ruins of former doctrines and after a century of persistent efforts, there sprang up two sovereign powers which seemed eternal --- matter as the fundamental woof of things, and energy to animate it. With the equations connecting them, modern science thought it could explain all phenomena. In its learned formulas all the secrets of the universe were enclosed. The divinities of old time were replaced by ingenious systems of differential equations.
These fundamental dogmas, the bases of modern science, the researches detailed in this work tend to destroy. If the principle of the conservation of energy --- which, by-the-by, is simply a bold generalization of experiments made in very simple cases --- likewise succumbs to the blows which are already attacking it, the conclusion must be arrived at that nothing in the world is eternal. The great divinities of science would also be condemned to submit to that invariable cycle which rules all things --- birth, growth, decline, and death.
But if the present researches shake the very foundations of our knowledge, and in consequence our entire conception of the universe, they are far from revealing to us the secrets of the universe. They show us that the physical world, which appeared to us something very simple, governed by a small number of elementary laws, is, on the contrary, terribly complex. Notwithstanding their infinite smallness, the atoms of all substances --- those, for example, of the paper on which these lines are written --- now appear as true planetary systems, guided in their headlong speed by formidable forces of the laws of which we are totally ignorant.
The new routes which recent researches open out to the investigations of inquirers are yet hardly traced. It is already much to know that they exist, and that science has before it a marvelous world to explore.
History of the Discovery of the Dissociation of Matter and of Intra-Atomic Energy
What brought into prominence the facts and principles summarized in the preceding chapter which will be unfolded in this work? This I will now proceed to show. The genesis of a discovery is rarely spontaneous. It only appears so because the difficulties and the hesitations which most often surround its inception are generally unnoticed.
The public troubles itself very little with the way in which inventions are made, but psychologists will certainly be interested by certain sides of the following account. In fact, they will find therein valuable documents on the birth of beliefs, on the part played, even in laboratories, by suggestions and illusions, and finally on the preponderant influence of prestige considered as a principal element of demonstration.
My researches preceded, in their beginning, all those carried out on the same lines. It was, in fact, in 1896 that I caused to be published in the Comptes Rendu de l’Academie des Science, solely for the purpose of establishing priority, a short notice summing up the researches I had been making for two years, whence it resulted that light falling on bodies produced radiations capable of passing through material substances. Unable to identify these radiations with anything known, I pointed out in the same note that they must probably constitute some unknown force --- an assertion to which I have often returned. To give it a name I called this radiation black light.
At the commencement of my experiments I perforce confused dissimilar things which I had to separate one after the other. In the action of light falling on the surface of a body there can be observed, in fact, two very distinct orders of phenomena:
(1) Radiations of the same family as the cathode rays. They are incapable of refraction or of polarization, and have no kinship with light. These are the radiations which to so-called radioactive substances, such as uranium, constantly emit abundantly and ordinary substances freely.
(2) Infrared radiations of great wavelength which, contrary to all that has hitherto been taught, pass through black paper, ebonite, wood, stone, and, in fact, most non-conducting substances. They are naturally capable of refraction and polarization.
It was not very easy to dissociate these various elements at a time when no one supposed that a large number of bodies, considered absolutely opaque, were, on the contrary, very transparent to the invisible infrared light, and when the announcement of the experiment of photographing a house in two minutes and in the dark-room through an opaque body would have been deemed absurd.
Without losing sight of the study of metallic radiations, I gave up some time to the examination of the properties of the infrared (1). This examination led me to the discovery of invisible luminescence, a phenomenon which had never been suspected, and enabled me to photograph objects kept in darkness for 18 months after they had seen the light.
[(1) In order not to confuse things which differ, I have reserved the term Black Light for these radiations. They will be examined in another volume devoted to the study of energy. Their properties differ considerably from those of ordinary light, not only by their invisibility, an unimportant characteristic due solely to the structure of the eye, but by absolutely special properties --- that, for instance, of passing through a great number of opaque bodies and of acting in an exactly contrary direction to other radiations of the spectrum.]
These researched terminated, I was able to proceed with the study of metallic radiations.
It was at the commencement of the year 1897 that I announced in a note published in the Comptes Rendu A. S., that all bodies struck by light emitted radiation capable of tendering air a conductor of electricity (2)
[(2) This property is still the most fundamental characteristic of radioactive bodies. It was by working from this only that radium and polonium were isolated.]
A few weeks later in C.R.A.S., I also gave details of quantitative experiments serving to confirm the above, and I pointed out the analogy of the radiations emitted by all bodies under the action of light with the radiations of the cathode ray family, an analogy which no one till then had suspected.
It was at the same period that M. Becquerel published his first researches. Taking up the forgotten experiments of Niepce de Saint-Victor, and employing, like him, salts of uranium, he showed, as the latter had already done, that these salts emitted in darkness radiations able to act on photographic plates. Carrying this experiment further than his predecessor, he established the fact that the emission seemed to persist indefinitely.
Of what did these radiations consist? Still under the influence of the ideas of N. de St.-Victor, Becquerel thought at first that it was a question of what Niepce termed “stored-up light” --- that is to say, a kind of invisible phosphorescence, and to prove it, he started experiments described at length in the C.R.A.S., which induced him to think that the radiations emitted by uranium were refracted, reflected, and polarized.
This point was fundamental. If the emissions of uranium could be refracted and polarized, it was evidently a question of radiations identical with light and simply forming a kind of invisible phosphorescence. If this refraction and polarization had no existence, it was a question of something totally different and quite unknown.
Not being able to fit in M. Becquerel’s experiments with my own, I repeated them with different apparatus, and arrived at the conclusion that the radiations of uranium were not in any way polarized. It then followed that we had before us not any form of light, but an absolutely new thing, constituting, as I had asserted at the beginning of my researches, a new force: “The properties of uranium were therefore only a particular case of a very general law”. It is with this last conclusion that I terminated one of my notes in the Comptes Rendu of 1897.
For nearly three years I was absolutely alone in maintaining that the radiations of uranium could not be polarized. It was only after the experiments of the Canadian physicist, Rutherford, that M.Becquerel finally recognized that he had been mistaken.
It will be considered, I think, very curious and one of the most instructive chapters in the history of science that for three years not one single physicist was to be met with in the whole world who thought of repeating --- though they were extraordinarily simple --- the experiments of M. Becquerel on the refraction, reflection, and polarization of the uranium rays. On the contrary, the most eminent published ingenious theories to explain this very refraction, reflection, and polarization.
It was a new version of the story of the child with the golden tooth on which the scholars of the day wrote important treatises, till one day it occurred to a skeptic to go see if the said child was really born with a golden tooth. It will be difficult, after such an example, to deny that, in scientific matters, prestige forms the essential element in conviction. We must therefore not scoff too much at those in the Middle Ages who knew no other sources of demonstration than the statements of Aristotle.
Leaving to its fate the doctrine which for several years I alone upheld, I continued my researches, enlarged the circle of my investigation, and showed that similar radiations arise, not only under the action of light, but also under very varying influences, chemical reaction especially. It became therefore more and more evident that the radiations of uranium were only, as I said from the very first, a particular case of a very general law.
This general law, which I have not ceased to study, is as follows: --- Under divers influences, light, chemical action, electric action, and often even, spontaneously, the atoms of simple bodies, as well as those of compound bodies, dissociate and emit effluves of the same family as the cathode rays.
This generalization is at the present day almost universally admitted, but the preceding statement shows that it needed some courage to formulate it for the first time, Who could have supposed any relationship between the radiations of uranium and any effluves whatever, cathodic or otherwise, since nearly all physicists then admitted, on M. Becquerel’s authority, the polarization and the refraction of these rays?
When the question as to polarization was definitely settled, it took but little time to establish the correctness of the facts stated by me. But it was only after the German physicists Giesel, Meyer, and Schweidler discovered in 1899 that the emissions of radioactive bodies were, like the cathode rays, capable of deviation by a magnet, that the idea of a probable analogy between these phenomena began to spread. Several physicists then took up this study, the importance of which has increased day by day. New facts arose on all sides, and the discovery of radium by Curie gave a great impetus to these researches.
M. de Heen, Prof. of Physics at the University of Liege, and Director of the celebrated Institute of Physics in that town, was the first to accept in its entirety the generalization I had endeavored to establish. Having taken up and developed my experiments, he declared in one of is papers that in point of importance they were on a par with the discovery of x-rays. They were the origin of numerous researches on his part, which led to remarkable results. The movement once started, it had to be followed up. On all sides radioactivity was sought for, and it was discovered everywhere. The spontaneous emission is often very weak, but becomes considerable in substances placed under the influence of various excitants --- light, heat, etc. All physicists are now agree in classing in the same family the cathode rays and the emissions from uranium, radium, and bodies dissociated by light, heat, and the like.
If, notwithstanding my assertions and my experiments, these analogies were not at once adopted, it is because the generalization of phenomena is at times much more difficult to discover than the facts from which this generalization flows. It is, however, from these generalizations that scientific progress is derived. "Every great advance in the sciences", said the philosopher Jevons, "consists of a vast generalization revealing deep and subtle analogies".
The generality of the phenomenon of the dissociation of matter would have been noticed much sooner if a number of known facts had been closely examined, but this was not done. These facts, besides, were spread over very different chapters of physics. For example, the loss of electricity occasioned by ultraviolet light had long been known, but one little thought of connecting the fact with the cathode rays. More than 50 years ago N. de St.-Victor saw that, in the dark, salts of uranium caused photographic impression for several months; but as this phenomenon did not seem connected with any known fact, it was put on one side. For a hundred years the gases of flame had been observed to discharge electrified bodies without anyone attempting to examine the cause of this phenomenon. The loss of electric charges through the influence of light had been pointed out several years before, but it was regarded as a fact peculiar to a few metals, without any suspicion of how general and important it was.
All these phenomena and many others, such as electricity and solar heat, are very dissimilar in appearance, but are the consequence of the same fact --- namely, the dissociation of matter. The common link which connects them appeared clearly directly we established that the dissociation of matter and the forms of electricity which result from it are to be ranked among the most widely spread natural phenomena.
The establishment of the fact of the dissociation of matter has allowed us to penetrate into an unknown world ruled by new forces, where matter, losing its properties as matter, becomes imponderable in the balance of the chemists, passes without difficulty through obstacles, and possesses a whole series of unforeseen properties.
I have had the satisfaction of seeing, while still alive, the recognition of the facts on which I based the theories which follow. For a long time I had given up all such hope, and more than once had thought of abandoning my researched. They had, in fact, been rather badly received in France. Several of the notes sent by me to the Academy of Sciences provoked absolute storms. The majority of the members of the Section of Physics energetically protested, and the scientific press joined in the chorus. We are so hierarchized, so hypnotized and tamed by our official teaching, that the expression of independent ideas seems intolerable. Today, when my ideas have slowly filtered into the minds of physicists, it would be ungracious to complain of their criticisms or the silence of most of them towards me. Sufficient for me is it that they have been able to avail themselves of my researches. The book of nature is a romance of such passionate interest that the pleasure of spelling out a few pages repays one for the trouble this short decipherment often demands. I should certainly not have devoted over 8 years to these very costly experiments had I not at once grasped their immense philosophical interest and the profound perturbation they would finally cause to the fundamental theories of science.
With the discovery of the universal dissociation of matter is linked that of intra-atomic energy, by which I have succeed in explaining the radioactive phenomena. The second was the consequence of the first-named discovery.
The discovery of intra-atomic energy cannot, however, be quite assimilated to that of the universality of the dissociation of matter. This universal dissociation is a fact, the existence of intra-atomic energy is only an interpretation. This interpretation, besides. Was necessary, for, after having tried several hypotheses to explain the radioactive phenomena, nearly all physicists have finally fallen in with the explanation I proposed when I announced that science was face to face with a new force hitherto entirely unknown.
It may interest the reader to know how the researches which have thus been briefly recorded were received in various countries.
It was especially abroad that they created a deep impression. In France, they met with a hostility which was not, however, unanimous, as will be seen by M. Dastre, Prof. at the Sorbonne and a member of the Institute:
"In the course of 5 years a fairly long journey has been covered on the road towards the generalization of the fact of radioactivity. Starting with the idea of a property specific to uranium, we have reached the supposition of a well-nigh universal natural phenomenon.
"It is right to recall that this result was predicted with prophetic perspicacity by Gustave Le Bon. From the outset this scholar endeavored to show that the action of light, certain chemical reactions, and lastly the action of electricity, call forth the manifestation of this particular mode of energy. Far from being rare, the production of these rays is unceasing. Not a sunbeam falls on a metallic surface, not an electric spark flashes, not a discharge takes place, not a single body becomes incandescent, without the appearance of a pure or transformed cathode ray. To Gustave LeBon must be ascribed the merit of having perceived from the first the great generality of this phenomenon. Even though he has used the erroneous term of Black Light, he has nonetheless grasped the universality and the principal features of this product. He has above all set the phenomenon in its proper place by transferring it from the closet of the physicist into the grand laboratory of nature". (Revue des Deux Mondes, 1901)
In one of the annual reviews on physical studies which he publishes annually, Prof. Lucien Poincare has very clearly summarized my researched in the following lines:
"M. Gustave Le Bon, to whom we owe numerous publications relating to the phenomena of the emission by matter of various radiations, and who was certainly one of the first to think that radioactivity is a general phenomenon of nature, supposes that under very different influences, light, chemical action, electrical action, and often even spontaneously, the atoms of simple bodies dissociate and emit effluves of the same family as cathode and x-rays; but all these manifestations would be particular aspects of an entirely new form of energy, quite distinct from electrical energy, and as widely spread throughout nature as heat. M. de Heen adopts similar ideas" (Rev. Generale des Sciences, January 1903).
I have only one fragment of a phrase to correct in the above lines. The eminent scholar says that I was "one of the first" to show that radioactivity is a universal phenomenon. This should read "the first". It suffices to turn to the texts and to their dates of publication to be convinced of this fact. My first memoir on the radioactivity of all bodies under the action of light appeared in the Revue Scientifique of May 1897.
It is natural enough that one should not be a prophet in one’s own country. It is sufficient to be a little of one elsewhere. The importance of the results brought to light by my researches was very quickly understood abroad. Out of the different studies they called forth, I shall confine myself to reproducing a few fragments.
The first is a portion of the preamble to four articles devoted to my experiments in the English Mechanic, January-April 1903): ---
"During six years Gustave Le Bon has continued his researches on certain reactions which he at fist termed Black Light. He scandalized orthodox physicists by his audacious assertion that there existed something else which had been quite unknown. However, his experiments decided other searchers to verify his assertions, and many unforeseen facts were discovered; Rutherford in America, Nedon in France, de Heen in Belgium, Lenard in Austria, Elseter and Geitel in Switzerland have successfully followed in the lines of Gustave Le Bon. Summing up today the experiments made by him for the last six years, Gustave Le Bon shows that he has discovered a new force in nature which manifests herself in all bodies. His experiments cast a vivid light on such mysterious subjects as the x-rays, radioactivity, electrical dispersion, the action of ultraviolet light, etc., Classical books are silent on all these subjects, and the most eminent electricians know not how to explain these phenomena".
The second of the articles to which I have above alluded is one in The Academy (Dec. 6, 1902, under this heading: "New Form of Energy":
"Hardly anything is more marked than the way in which the ideas of men of science with regard to force and matter have completely changed during the last 10 years" The atomic theory that every scrap of matter could be divided in the last resort into atoms ach in itself indivisible and combining among themselves only in fixed proportions, was then a law of scientific faith, and led to pronouncements like those of a late President of the Chemical Society, who informed his hearers in his annual allocution that the age of discovery in chemistry was closed, and that henceforth we had better devote ourselves to a thorough classification of chemical phenomena. But this prediction was no sooner uttered than it was falsified. There came before us Mr. (not then Sir William) Crookes’ discovery oF what he called ‘radiant matter’ --- then Roentgen’s ray ---… until now M. Gustave LeBon… assured us that these new ideas are not several things but one thing, and that they all of them point to a form of matter spread throughout the world indeed, but so inconceivably minute that it becomes not matter but force... The consequences of the final acceptance of [M. Le Bon’s] theory are fairly enormous... As for chemistry, the whole fabric will be demolished at a blow; and we shall have a tabula rasa on which we may write an entirely new system wherein matter will pass through matter, and ‘elements’ will be shown to be only differing forms of the same substance. But even this will be nothing compared with the results which will follow the bridging of the space between the material and the immaterial which M. Le Bon anticipates as the result of his discoveries, and which Sir William Crookes seems to have foreshadowed in his address to the Royal Society upon its late reception of the Prince of Wales".
I will add to these quotations a passage from the divers articles which M. de Heen, Prof. of Physics at the University of Liege, ha kindly devoted to my researches: ---
"The resounding effect produced in the world by the discovery of the x-rays is well known, a discovery which was immediately followed by one more modest in appearance, but perhaps more important in reality ---, viz., that of Black Light, as the result of the researched of Gustave LeBon. This last scholar proved that bodies struck by light, especially metals, acquire the faculty of producing rays analogous to the x-rays, and discovered that this was not simply an exceptional phenomenon, but, on the contrary, one of an order of phenomena as common throughout nature as caloric, electricity, and luminous manifestations, a thesis which I also have constantly upheld from that time".
But all this is already ancient history. The anger which my first researches provoked in France has vanished. The staffs of the laboratories formerly so hostile have welcomed with sympathetic curiosity the first editions of this work. The proof of this I have found in several articles, and especially in the review by one of the most distinguished young scholars of the Sorbonne, of which I give a few extracts: ---
"It will be Dr Le Bon’s title to fame that he was the first to attack the dogma of the indestructibility of matter, and that he has destroyed it within the space of a few years. In 1986 he published a short note which will mark one of the most important dates in the history of science, for it has been the starting point of the discovery of the dissociation of matter... To the already known forms of energy, heat, light, etc., another must be added, namely matter or intra-atomic energy. The reality of this new form of energy, which Dr LeBon has made known to us, rests in no way upon theory, but is deduced from experimental fact. Although unknown till now, it is the most mighty of known forces, and may even be the origin of most of the others... The beginning of Dr Le Bon’s work produces in the reader a deep impression; one feels in it the breath of a thought of genius... Dr LeBon has been compared to Darwin. If one were bound to make a comparison, I would rather compare him to Lamarck. Lamarck was the first to have a clear idea of the evolution of living beings. Dr Le Bon was the first to recognize the possibility of the evolution of matter, and the generality of the radioactivity by which its disappearance is manifested" (Georges Bohn, Revue des Idees, 15 January 1906).
The reader will, I hope, excuse this short pleading. The repeated forgetfulness of certain physicists has compelled me to utter it. The new phenomena I have discovered have cost me too much labor, too much money, and too much annoyance for me not to try to keep a firm hold on a prize obtained with so much difficulty.
Intra-Atomic Energy And The Forces Derived Therefrom
Chapter I
Intra-Atomic Energy --- Its Magnitude
(1) The Existence of Intra-Atomic Energy
I have given the name of Intra-atomic Energy to the new force, differing entirely from those hitherto observed, which is produced by the dissociation of matter --- that is to say, by the whole series of radioactive phenomena. From the chronological point of view, I ought evidently to commence by describing this dissociation; but as intra-atomic energy governs all the phenomena examined in this work, it seems to me preferable to begin by its study.
I shall therefore suppose an acquaintance with the facts concerning the dissociation of matter which I shall set forth later, and shall confine myself at present to recalling one of the most fundamental of these facts --- the emission into space, from bodies undergoing dissociation, of immaterial particles animated by a speed capable of equaling and even of eften exceeding a third of the speed of light. That speed is immensely superior to any we can produce by the aid of the known forces at our disposal. This is a point which must be steadily kept in mind from the first. A few figures will suffice to make this difference evident.
A very simple calculation shows, in fact, that to give a small bullet the speed of dissociation would require a firearm capable of containing 1,340,000 barrels of gunpowder. As soon as the immense speed of the particles emitted was measured by the very simple methods I describe elsewhere, it became evident that an enormous amount of energy is liberated during the dissociation of atoms. Physicists then sought in vain and many are still seeking the external source of this energy. It was understood, in fact, to be a fundamental principle that matter is inert and can only give back, in some form or other, the energy which has first been supplied to it. The source of the energy manifested could therefore only be external.
When I proved that radioactivity is a universal phenomena and not peculiar to a small number of exceptional bodies, the question became still more puzzling. But, as this radioactivity is above all manifested under the influence of external agents --- light, heat, chemical forces, etc. --- it is comprehensible that we should seek for the origin of this proved energy among these external causes, though there is no comparison between the magnitude of the effects produced and their supposed causes. As to spontaneously radioactive bodies, no explanation of the same order was possible, and this is why the question set forth above remained unanswered and seemed to constitute an inexplicable mystery. Yet, in reality, the solution to the problem is very simple. In order to discover the origin of the forces which produce the phenomena of radioactivity, one has only to lay aside certain classical dogmas. Let us first of all remark that it is proved by experiments that the particles emitted during dissociation possess identical characteristics, whatever the substance in question and the means used to dissociate it. Whether we take the spontaneous emission from radium or from a metal under the action of light, or again from a Crookes’ tube, the particles emitted are similar. The origin of the energy which produces the observed effects seems therefore to be always the same. Not being external to matter, it can only exist within this last.
It is this energy which I have designated by the term intra-atomic energy. What are its fundamental characteristics? It differs from all forces known to us by its very great concentration, by its prodigious power, and by the stability of the equilibria it can form. We shall see that, if instead of succeeding in dissociating thousandths of a milligram of matter, as at present, we could dissociate a few kilograms, we should possess a source of energy compared with which the whole provision of coal contained in our mines would represent an insignificant total. It is by reason of the magnitude of intra-atomic energy tht radioactive phenomena manifest themselves with the intensity we observe. This is it which produces the emission of particles having an immense speed, the penetration of material bodies, the apparition of x-rays, etc., phenomena which we will examine in detail in other chapters. Let us confine ourselves, for the moment, to remarking that effects such as these can be caused by none of the forces previously known. The universality in nature of intra-atomic energy is one of the characteristics most easy to define. We can recognize its existence everywhere, since we now discover radioactivity everywhere. The equilibria it forms are very stable, since matter dissociates so feebly that for a long time one could believe it to be indestructible. It is, besides, the effect produced on our senses by these equilibria that we call matter. Other forms of energy --- light, electricity, etc., are characterized by very unstable equilibria.
The origin of intra-atomic energy is not difficult to elucidate, if one supposes, as do the astronomers, that the condensation of our nebula suffices by itself to explain the constitution of our solar system. It is conceivable that an analogous condensation of the ether may have begotten the energies contained in the atom. The latter may be roughly compared to a sphere in which a non-liquifiable gas was compressed to the degree of thousands of atmospheres at the beginning of the world.
If this new force --- the most widespread and the mightiest of all those of nature --- has remained entirely unknown till now, it is because, in the first place, we lacked the reagents necessary for the proof of its existence, and then, because the atomic edifice erected at the beginning of the ages is so stable, so solidly united, that its dissociation --- at all events by our present means --- remains extremely slight. Were it otherwise the world would have vanished long ago.
But how is it that a demonstration so simple as that of the existence of intra-atomic energy has not been made since the discovery of radioactivity, and especially since I have demonstrated the generality of this phenomenon? This can only be explained by bearing in mind that it was contrary to all known principles to recognize that matter could by itself produce energy. Now, scientific dogmas inspire the same superstitious fear as did the gods of old, though they have at times all their liability to be broken.
(2) Estimate of the Quantity of Intra-Atomic Energy Contained in Matter ~
I have said a few words as to the magnitude of intra-atomic energy. Let us now try to measure it.
[Page 40 missing]
... millions of kilograms, figures which correspond to about 6,800,000,000 horsepower if this gram of matter were stopped in a second. This amount of energy, suitably disposed, would be sufficient to work a goods train on a horizontal line equal in length to a little over four times and a quarter the circumference of the earth. To send this same train over this distance by means of coal would take 2,830,000 kilograms.
What determines the greatness of the above figures and makes them at first sight improbable is the enormous speed of the masses in play, a speed which we cannot approach by any known mechanical means. In the factor mv2, the mass of one gram is certainly very small, but the speed being immense the effects produced become equally immense. A rifle-ball falling on the skin from the height of a few centimeters produces no appreciable effect in consequence of its slight speed. As soon as this speed is increased, the effects become more and more deadly, and with the speed of 1000 meters/second given by the powder now employed, the bullet will pass through very resistant obstacles. To reduce the mass of a projectile matters nothing if one arrives at a sufficient increase in speed. This is exactly the tendency of modern musketry, which constantly reduces the caliber of the bullet but endeavors to increase its speed.
Now the speed which we can produce are absolutely nothing compared with those of the particles of dissociated matter. We can barely exceed a kilometer per second by the means at our disposal, while the speed of radioactive particles is 100,000 times greater. Thence the magnitude of the effects produced. These differences become plain when one knows that a body having a velocity of 100,000 kilometers/second would go from the earth to the moon in less than four seconds, while a cannon ball would take about 5 days.
Taking into account a part only of the energy liberated in radioactivity, and by a different method, figures inferior to those given above, but still colossal, have been arrived at. The measurements of Curie prove that one gram of radium emits 100 calorie-grams/hour, which would give 876,000 calories/year. If the life of a gram of radium is 1000 years, as is supposed, by transforming these calories into kilogram-meters at the rate of 1125 kilogram-meters per great calorie, the immensity of the figures obtained will readily appear. Necessarily, these calories, high as is their number, only represent an insignificant part of the intra-atomic energy, since the latter is expended in various radiations.
The fact of the existence of a considerable condensation of energy within the atoms only seems to jar on us because it is outside the range of things formerly taught us by experience; it should, however, be remarked that, even leaving on one side the facts revealed by radioactivity, analogous concentrations are daily observable. Is it not strikingly evident, in fact, that electricity must exist at an enormous degree of accumulation in chemical compounds, since it is found by the electrolysis of water that one gram of hydrogen possesses an electric charge of 96,000 coulombs? One gets an idea of the degree of condensation at which the electricity existed before its liberation, from the fact that the quantity above mentioned is immensely superior to what we are able to maintain on the largest surfaces at our disposal. Elementary treatises have long since pointed out that barely a 20th part of the above quantity would suffice to charge a globe the size of the earth to a potential of 6000 volts. The best static machines in our laboratories hardly give forth 1/10,000 of a coulomb per second. They would have to work unceasingly for a little over 30 years to give the quantity of electricity contained within the atoms of one gram of hydrogen.
As electricity exists in a state of considerable concentration in chemical compounds, it is evident that the atom might have been regarded long since as a veritable condenser of energy. To grasp thereafter the notion that the quantity of this energy. To grasp thereafter the notion that the quantity of this energy must be enormous, it was only necessary to appreciate the magnitude of the attractions and repulsions which are produced by the electric charges before us. It is curious to note that several physicists have touched the fringe of this question without perceiving its consequences. For example, Cornu pointed out that if it were possible to concentrate a charge of one coulomb on a very small sphere,, and to bring it within one centimeter of another sphere likewise having a charge of one coulomb, the force created by this repulsion would equal 918 dynes, or about 9 billion kilograms.
Now, we have seen above that by the dissociation of water we can obtain from one gram of hydrogen an electric charge of 96,000 coulombs. It would be enough --- and this is exactly the hypothesis lately enunciated by J.J. Thomson --- to dispose the electric particles at suitable distances within the atom, to obtain, through their attractions, repulsions, and rotations, extremely powerful energies in an extremely small space. The difficulty was not, therefore, in conceiving that a great deal of energy could remain within an atom. It is even surprising that a notion so evident was not formulated long since.
Our calculation of radioactive energy has been made within those limits of speed at which experiments show that the inertia of these particles does not sensibly vary, but it is possible that one cannot assimilate their inertia --- though this is generally done --- to that of material particles, and then the figures might be different. But they would nonetheless be extremely high. Whatever the methods adopted and the elements of calculation employed --- velocity of the particles, calories emitted, electric attractions, etc. --- one arrives at figures differing from each other indeed, but all extraordinarily high. Thus, for example, Rutherford fixes the energy of the alpha particles of thorium at 600,000,000 times that of a rifle-ball. Other physicists who, since the publication of one of my papers have gone into the subject, have reached figures sometimes very much higher. Assimilating the mass of electrons to that of the material particles, Max Abraham arrives at this conclusion: "That the number of electrons sufficient to weigh one gram carry with them an energy of 6 x 10 13 joules". Reducing this figure to our ordinary unit, it will be seen to represent about 80 million horsepower per second, about 12 times greater than the figures I found for the energy emitted by one gram of particles with a speed of 100,000 kilometers per second.
J.J. Thomson also has gone into estimates of the magnitude of the energy contained in the atom, starting with the hypothesis that the material atom is solely composed of electric particles. His figures, though also very high, are lower than those just given. He finds that the energy accumulated in one gram of matter represents 1.02 x 1019 ergs, which would be about 100 billion kilogram-meters. These figures only represent, according to him, "an exceedingly small fraction" of that possessed by the atoms at the beginning and gradually lost by radiation.
(3) Forms Under Which Energy Can Be Condensed In Matter ~
Under what forms can intra-atomic energy exist. And how can such colossal forces have been concentrated in very small particles? The idea of such a concentration seems at first sight inexplicable, because our ordinary experience tells us that the extent of mechanical power is always associated with the dimensions of the apparatus concerned in its production. A 1000 hp engine is of considerable volume. By association of ideas we are therefore led to believe that the extent of mechanical energy implies the extent of the apparatus which produces it. But this is a pure illusion consequent on the weakness of our mechanical systems, and easy to dispel by very simple calculations. One of the most elementary formulas of dynamics teaches us that the energy of a body of constant size can be increased at will simply by increasing its speed. It is therefore possible to imagine a theoretical machine composed of the head of a pin turning round in the bezel of a ring, which, notwithstanding its smallness, should possess, thanks to its rotative force, a mechanical power equal to that of several thousand locomotives.
To fix our ideas, let us suppose a small bronze sphere (density 8.842) with a radius of 3 millimeters and consequently of one gram in weight. Let us suppose that it rotates in space round one of its diameters with an equatorial speed equal to that of the particles of dissociated matter (100,000 kilograms/second), and that, by some process or other, the rigidity of the metal has been made sufficient to resist this rotation. Calculating the vis viva [kinetic energy] of this sphere it will be seen to corresponding to 203,873,000,000 kilogram-=meters. This is nearly the work that 1510 locomotives averaging 500 hp each would supply in an hour. Such is the amount of energy that could be contained in a v ery small sphere animated by a rotary movement of which the speed should be equal to that of the particles of dissociated matter. If the same little ball turned on its own center with the velocity of light (300,00 kilograms/second) which represents about the speed of the beta particles of radium, its kinetic energy would be 9 times greater. It would exceed 1.8 billion kilogram-meters and represent the work of one hour by 13,590 locomotives.
It is precisely these excessively rapid movements of rotation on their axis and round a center that the elements which constitute the atoms seem to possess, and it is their speed which is the origin of the energy they contain. We have been led to suppose the existence of these movements of rotation by various mechanical considerations much anterior to the discoveries of the present day. These last have simply confirmed former ideas and have retransferred to the elements of the atom the motion which was attributed to the atom itself at a time when it was considered indivisible. It is only, no doubt, because they possess such velocities of rotation that the elements which constitute the atoms can, when leaving their orbits under the influence of various causes, be launched at a tangent through space with the velocities observed in the emissions of particles of matter in the course of dissociation.
The rotation of the elements of the atom is moreover the very condition of their stability, as it is for a top or a gyroscope. When under the influence of any cause the speed of rotation falls below a certain critical point, the equilibrium of the particles becomes unstable, their kinetic energy increases and they may be expelled from the system, a phenomenon which is the commencement of the dissociation of the atom.
(4) The Utilization of Intra-Atomic Energy ~
The last objections of the doctrine of intra-atomic energy are daily disappearing, and it is now hardly contested that matter is a prodigious reservoir of energy; while the search for the means of easily liberating this energy will surely be one of the most important problems of the future. It is important to notice that, although the numbers above arrived at in various ways point out the existence in matter of immense forces --- so unforeseen hitherto --- they by no means imply that these forces already are at our disposal. In fact the substances which dissociate quickest, like radium, only disengage very minute quantities of energy. All those millions of kilogram-meters which a simple gram of matter contains amount in reality to very little if, to obtain them, we have to wait millions of years. Suppose a strong box containing several thousand millions of gold dust to be closed by a mechanism which only permits the daily extraction of a milligram of the precious metal. The owner of that strong box, notwithstanding his great wealth, would be in reality very poor, and would remain so, so long as his efforts to discover the secret of the mechanism by which he could open it were unsuccessful.
This is our position as regards the forces enclosed in matter. But, to succeed in capturing them, it was first necessary to be acquainted with their existence, and of this one had not the least idea a few years ago. It was even though very certain that they did not exist. But shall we succeed in easily liberating the colossal power which the atoms conceal in their bosom? No one can foresee this. No more could one say in the days of Galvani that the electrical energy which enabled him to move with difficulty the legs of frogs and to attract small scraps of paper would one day set in motion enormous railway trains. It will perhaps always be beyond our power to totally dissociate the atom, because the difficulties must increase as dissociation advances, but it would suffice if we could succeed in easily dissociating a small part of it. Whether the gram of dissociated matter that we have supposed to be taken from a ton of matter or even more, matters nothing. The result would always be the same from the point of view of the energy produced. The researches which I have essayed on these lines, and which will be set forth here, show that it is possible to largely hasten the dissociation of various substances.
The methods of dissociation are, as we shall see, numerous. The most simple is the action of light. It has further the advantage of costing nothing. In so fresh a field, with a new world opening out before us, none of our old theories should stop those who seek. "The secret of all who make discoveries", says Liebig, "is that they look upon nothing as impossible". The results that could be obtained in this order of researches are truly immense. The power to dissociate matter freely would place at our disposal an infinite source of energy, and would render unnecessary the extraction of that coal. The scholar who discovers the way to liberate economically the forces which matter contains will almost instantaneously change the face of the world. If an unlimited supply of energy were gratuitously placed at the disposal of man he would no longer have to procure it at the cost of arduous labor. The poor would then be on a level with the rich, and there would be an end to all social questions.
Transformation Of Matter Into Energy
Modern science formerly established a complete separation between matter and energy. The classic ideas on this scission will be found very plainly stated in the following passage of a recent work by Prof. Janet: ---
"The work we live in is, in reality, a double work; or rather, it is composed of two distinct worlds: one the world of matter, the other the world of energy. Copper, iron, and coal are forms of matter, mechanical labor and heat are forms of energy. These two worlds are each ruled by one and the same law. Matter and energy can assume various forms without matter ever transforming itself into energy or energy into matter... We can no more conceive energy without matte than we can conceive matter without energy" (Janet, Lecons d’Electricite).
Never, n fact, as says M. Janet, has it been possible till now to transform matter into energy; or, to be more precise, matter has never appeared to manifest any energy save that which had first been supplied to it. Incapable of creating energy, it could only giv e it back. The fundamental principles of thermodynamics taught that a material system isolated from all external action cannot spontaneously generate energy.
All previous scientific observations seemed to confirm this notion that no substance is able to produce energy without having first obtained it from outside. Matter may serve as a support to electricity, as in the case of a condenser; it may radiate heat as in the case of a mass of metal previously heated; it may manifest forces produced by simple changes of equilibrium as in the case of chemical transformation; but in all these circumstances the energy disengaged is but the restitution in quantity exactly equal to that first communicated to the portion of matter or employed in producing the combination. In all the cases just mentioned, as in all others of the same order, matter does no more than give back the energy which had first been given to it in some shape or other. It has created nothing, nothing has gone forth from itself.
The impossibility of transforming matter into energy seemed therefore evident, and it was rightly invoked in the works which have become classic to establish a sharp separation between the world of matter and the world of energy. For this separation to disappear, it was necessary to succeed in transforming matter into energy without external addition. Now, it is exactly this spontaneous transformation of matter into energy which is the result of all the experiments on the dissociation of matter set forth in this work. We shall see from them that matter can vanish without return, leaving behind it only the energy produced by its dissociation. The spontaneous production so contrary to the scientific ideas of the present time, appeared at first entirely inexplicable to physicists busied in seeking outside matter and failing to find it, the origin of energy manifested. We have shown that the explanation becomes very simple so soon as one consents to recognize that matter contains a reservoir of energy which it can lose in part, either spontaneously or by the effect of slight influences.
These slight influences act somewhat like a spark on a quantity of gunpowder --- that is to say, by liberating energies far beyond those of the spark. Strictly speaking it might be urged, doubtless, that in that case it is not matter which transforms itself into energy, but simply an intra-atomic energy which is expended; but as this matter cannot be generated without matte vanishing without return, we have a right to say that things happen exactly as if matter were transformed into energy.
Such a transformation becomes, moreover, very comprehensible so soon as one is thoroughly penetrated with the idea that matter is simply that form of energy endowed with stability which we have called intra-atomic energy. It results from this that when we say that matter is transformed into energy, it simply signifies that intra-atomic energy has changed its aspect to assume those divers forms to which we give the names of light, electricity, etc. And if, as we have shown above, a very small quantity of matter can produce, in the course of dissociation, a large amount of energy, it is because one of the most characteristic properties of the intra-atomic forces is their condensation, in immense quantities, within an extremely circumscribed space. For an analogous reason a gas compressed to a very high degree in a very small reservoir can give a considerable volume of gas when the tap is opened which before prevented its escape.
The preceding notions were quite new when I formulated them for the first time. Several physicists are now arriving at them by different ways, but they do not reach them without serious difficulties, because some of these new notions are extremely hard to reconcile with certain classic principles. Many scholars have as much trouble in admitting them as they experienced 50 years ago in acknowledging as exact the principle of the conservation of energy. Nothing is more difficult than to rid oneself of the inherited ideas which unconsciously direct our thoughts.
These difficulties may be appreciated by reading a recent communication from one of the most eminent of living physicists, Lord Kelvin, at a meeting of the British Association, regarding the heat spontaneously given out by radium during its dissociation. Yet this emission is no more surprising than the continuous emission of particles having a speed of the same order as that of light, which can be obtained not only from radium, but from any substance whatever.
"It is utterly impossible", writes Lord Kelvin, "that the heat produced can proceed from the stored energy of radium. It therefore seems to me absolutely certain that if the emission of heat continues at the same rate, this heat must be supplied from outside" (Philosophical Magazine, February 1904).
And Lord Kelvin falls back upon the commonplace hypothesis formed at the outset on the origin of the energy of radioactive bodies, which were attributable, as it was thought, to certain mysterious forces from the ambient medium. This supposition had no experimental support. It was simply the theoretical consequence of the idea that matter, being entirely unable to create energy, could only give back what had been supplied to it. The fundamental principles of thermodynamics which Lord Kelvin has helped so much to found, tell, in fact, that a material system isolated from all external action cannot spontaneously generate energy. But experiment has ever been superior to principles, and when once it has spoken, those scientific laws which appeared to be the most stable are condemned to rejoin in oblivion, the used-up, outworn dogmas and doctrines past service.
Other and bolder physicists, like Rutherford, after having admitted the principles of intra-atomic energy, remain in doubt. This is what the latter writes in a paper later than his book on radioactivity: ---
"It would be desirable to see appear some kind of chemical theory to explain the facts, and to enable us to knows whether the energy is borrowed from the atom itself or from external sources" (Archives des Sciences Physiques a Genieve, 1905,p. 53).
Many physicists, like Lord Kelvin, still keep to the old principles: that is why the phenomena of radioactivity, especially the spontaneous emission of particles animated with great speed and the rise in temperature during radioactivity, seem to the utterly inexplicable, and constitute a scientific enigma, as M. Ascart has recently said. The enigma, however, is very simple with the explanation I have given.
One could not hope, moreover, that ideas so opposed to classic dogmas a s intra-atomic energy and the transforming of matter into energy should spread very rapidly. It is even contrary to the usual evolution of scientific ideas that they should be already widely spread, and should have produced all the discussion of which a summary will be found in the chapter devoted to the examination of objections. One can only explain this relative success by remembering that faith in certain scientific principles had already been greatly shaken by such unforeseen discoveries as those of the x-rays and of radium.
The fact is that the scientific ideas which rule the minds of scholars at various epochs have all the solidarity of religious dogmas. Very slow to be established, they are very slow likewise to disappear. New scientific truths have, assuredly, experience and reason as a basis, but they are only propagated by prestige --- that is, when they are enunciated by scholars whose official position gives them prestige in the eyes of the scientific public. Now, it is this very category of scholars which not only does not enunciate them, but employs its authority to combat them. Truths of such capital importance as Ohm’s law, which governs the whole of electricity, and the law of the conservation of energy which governs all physics, were received, on their first appearance, with indifference or contempt, and remained without effect until the day when they were enunciated anew by scholars endowed with influence.
It is only by studying the history of sciences, so little pursued at the present date, that one succeeds in understanding the genesis of beliefs and the laws governing their diffusion.. I have alluded to two discoveries which were among the most important of the past century, and which are summarized in two laws, of which one can say that they ought to have appealed to all minds by their marvelous simplicity and their imposing grandeur. Not only did they strike no one, but the most eminent scholars of the epoch did not concern themselves about them except to try to cover them with ridicule.
That the simple enunciation of such doctrines should have appealed to no one shows with what difficulty a new idea is accepted when it does not fit in with former dogmas. Prestige, I repeat, and to a very slight extent experience are alone the ordinary foundation of our convictions --- scientific and otherwise. Experiments --- even those most convincing in appearance --- have never constituted an immediately demonstrable foundation when they clashed with long since accepted ideas. Galileo learned this to his cost when, having brought together all the philosophers of the celebrated University of Pisa, he thought to prove to them by experiment that, contrary to the then accepted ideas, bodies of different weight fell with the same velocity. Galileo’s demonstration was assuredly very conclusive, since by letting fall at the same moment from the top of a tower a small leaden ball and a cannon shot of the same metal, he showed that both bodies reached the ground together. The professors contented themselves with appealing to the authority of Aristotle, and in nowise modified their opinions.
Many years have passed away since that time, but the degree of receptivity of minds for new things has not sensibly increased.
Forces Derived From Intra-Atomic Energy --- Molecular Forces, Electricity, Solar Heat, Etc.
(1) The Origin of Molecular Forces ~
Although matter was formerly considered inert, and only capable of preserving and restoring the energy which had first been given to it, yet it was necessarily established that there existed within it forces sometimes considerable, such as cohesion, affinity, osmotic attractions and repulsions, which were seemingly independent of all external agents. Other forces, such as radiant heat and electricity, which also issued from matter, might be considered simple restitutions of an energy borrowed from outside.
But if the cohesion which makes a rigid block out of the dust of atoms of which bodies are formed, or if that affinity which draws apart or dashes certain elements one upon the other and creates chemical combinations, or if the osmotic attractions and repulsions which hold in dependency the most important phenomena of life, are visibly force inherent to matter itself, it was altogether impossible with the old ideas to determine their source. The origin of these forces ceases to be mysterious when it is known that matter is a colossal reservoir of energy. Observation having long ago shown that any form of energy whatever lends itself to a large number of transformations, we easily conceive how all the molecular forces may be derived from intra-atomic energy: cohesion, affinity, etc., hitherto so inexplicable. We are far from being acquainted with their character, but at least we see the source from which they spring.
Outside the forces plainly inherent to matter that we have just enumerated, there are two, electricity and solar heat, the origin of which has always remained unknown, and which also, as we shall see, find an easy explanation by the theory of intra-atomic energy.
(2) The Origin of Electricity ~
When we approach the detailed study of the facts on which are based the theories set forth in this work, we shall find that electricity is one of the most constant manifestations of the dissociation of matter. Matter being nothing else than intra-atomic energy itself, it may be said that to dissociate matter is simply to liberate a little intra-atomic energy and to oblige it to take another form. Electricity is precisely one of these forms.
For a certain number of years the role of electricity has constantly grown in importance. It is at the base of all chemical reactions, which are more and more considered as electrical reactions. It appears now as a universal force, and the tendency is to connect all other forces with it. That a force of which the manifestations have this importance and universality should have been unknown for thousands of years constitutes one of the most striking facts in the history of science, and is one of those facts we must always bear in mind to understand how we may be surrounded with very powerful forces without perceiving them.
For centuries all that was known about electricity could be reduced to this: that certain resinous substances when rubbed attract light bodies. But might not other bodies enjoy the same property? By extending the friction to larger surfaces might not more intense effects still be produced? This no one thought of inquiring. Ages succeeded each other before there arose a mind penetrating enough to verify by experiment whether a body with a large surface when rubbed would not exercise an action superior in energy to that produced by a small fragment of the same body. From this verification which now seems so simple, but which took so many years to accomplish, we saw emerge the frictional electric machine of our laboratories and the phenomena it produces. The most striking of these were the apparition of sparks and violent discharges which revealed to an astonished world a new force and put into the hands of man a power of which he thought the gods alone possessed the secret.
Electricity was then only produced very laboriously and was considered a very exceptional phenomenon. Now we find it everywhere and know that the simple contact of two heterogeneous bodies suffices to generate it. The difficulty now is not how to produce electricity, but how not to give it birth during the production of any phenomenon whatever. The falling of a drop of water, the heating of a gaseous mass by the sun, the raising of the temperature of a twisted wire, and a reaction capable of modifying the nature of a body, are all sources of electricity.
But if all chemical reactions are electrical reactions, as is now said to be the case, if the sun cannot change the temperature of a body without disengaging electricity, if a drop of water cannot fall without producing it, it is evident that its role in the life of all beings must be preponderant, This, in fact, is what we are beginning to admit. Not a single change takes place in the cells of the body, no vital reaction is effected in the tissues, without the interference of electricity. M. Berthelot has recently shown the important role of the electric tensions to which plants are constantly subjected. The variations in the electric potential of the atmosphere are enormous, since they may oscillate between 600 and 800 volts in fine weather, and rise to 15,000 volts at the least fall of rain. This potential increases at the rate of 20 to20 volts per meter in height in fine and from 400to 500 volts in rainy weather for the same elevation. "These figures", he says, "give an idea of the potential which exists either between the upper point of a rod of which the other extremity is earthed, or between the top of a plant of a tree, and the layer of air in which that point or that top is bathed". The same scholar has proved that the effluves generated by these differences of tension can provoke numerous chemical reactions: the fixation of nitrogen on hydrates of carbon, the dissociation of carbonic acid into carbonic oxide and oxygen, etc.
After having established the phenomenon of the general dissociation of matter, I asked myself if the universal electricity, the origin of which remained unexplained, was not precisely the consequence of the universal dissociation of matter. My experiments fully verified this hypothesis, and they proved that electricity is one of the most important forms of intra-atomic energy liberated by the dematerialization of matter. I was led to this conclusion after having satisfied myself that the products which escape from a body electrified at sufficient tension are entirely identical with those given out by radioactive substances on the road to dissociation. The various methods employed to obtain electricity, notably friction, only hasten the dissociation of matter. I shall refer, for the details of this demonstration, to the chapter treating of the subject, confining myself at present to pointing out summarily the different generalizations which flow from the doctrine of intra-atomic energy. It is not electricity alone, but also solar heat, which, as we shall see, may be considered one of its manifestations.
(3) Origin of Solar Heat ~
As we have fathomed the study of the dissociation of matter, so has the importance of this phenomenon proportionately increased. After recognizing that electricity may be considered one of the manifestations of matter, I asked myself whether this dissociation and its result, the liberation of intra-atomic energy, were not also the cause, till now so unknown, of the maintenance of solar heat. The various hypotheses hitherto invoked to explain the maintenance of this heat --- the supposed fall of meteorites on the sun, for example --- having all seemed extremely inadequate, it was necessary to seek others. Given the enormous quantity of energy accumulated within the atoms, it would be enough, if their dissociation were more rapid than it is on cooled globes, to furnish the amount of heat necessary to keep up the incandescence of the stars. And there would be no need to presume, as was done when radium was supposed to be the only body capable of producing heat while dissociating, the unlikely presence of that substance in the sun, since the atoms of all bodies contain an immense store of energy.
To maintain that stars such as the sun can keep up their own temperature by the heat resulting from the dissociation of their component atoms, seems much like saying that a heated body is capable of maintaining its temperature without any contribution from outside. Now, it is well known that an incandescent body --- a heated block of metal, for instance --- when left to itself rapidly cools by radiation, though it be the seat of considerable dissociation. But it cools, in fact, simply because the rise in temperature produced by the dissociation of its atoms during incandescence is far too slight to compensate for its loss of heat by radiation. The substances which, like radium, most rapidly dissociate, can hardly maintain their temperature at more than 3 or 4° C. above that of the ambient medium. Suppose, however, that the dissociation of any substance whatever were only one thousand times more rapid than that of radium, then the quantity of energy emitted would more than suffice to keep it in a state of incandescence.
The whole question therefore is whether, at the origin of things --- that is to say, a the epoch when atoms were formed by condensations of an unknown nature, they did not possess such a quantity of energy that they have been able ever since to maintain the stars in a state of incandescence, thanks to their slow dissociation. This supposition is supported by the various calculation I have given as to the immense amount of energy contained within the atoms. The figures given are considerable, and yet J.J. Thomson, who has recently taken up the question anew, arrives at the conclusion that the energy now concentrated within the atoms is but an insignificant portion of that which they formerly contained and lost by radiation. Independently and at an earlier date, Prof. Filippo Re arrived at the same conclusion.
If, therefore, atoms formerly contained a quantity of energy far exceeding the still formidable amount they now possess, they may, by dissociation, have expended during long accumulations of ages a part of the gigantic reserve of forces piled up within them at the beginning of things. They may have been able, and consequently may still be able, to maintain at a very high temperature stars like the sun and the heavenly bodies. In the course of time, however, the store of intra-atomic energy within the atoms of certain stars has at length been reduced, and their dissociation has become slower and slower. Finally, they have acquired an increasing stability, have dissociated very slowly, and have become such as one observes them today in the shape of cooled stars like the earth and other planets.
If the theories formulated in this chapter are correct, the intra-atomic energy manifested during the dematerialization of matter constitutes the fundamental element whence most other forces are derived. So that it is not only electricity which is one of its manifestation, but also solar heat, that primary source of life and of the majority of the forces at our disposal. Its study, which reveals to us matter in a totally new aspect, already permits us top throw unforeseen light on the higher mechanics of our universe.
The Objections To The Doctrine Of Intra-Atomic Energy
The criticisms called forth by my researches on intra-atomic energy prove that they have interested many scholars. As a new theory can only be solidly established by discussion, I thank them for their objections, and shall endeavor to answer them.
The most important has been raised by several members of the Academie des Sciences. This is what M. Poincare, one of the most eminent, wrote to me after the publication of my researches: ---
“I have read your memoir with the greatest interest. It raises a number of disturbing questions. One point to which I should like to call your attention is the opposition between your conception of the origin of solar heat and that of Helmholtz and Lord Kelvin.
"When the nebula condenses into a sun its original potential energy is transformed into heat subsequently dissipated by radiation.
"When the sub-atoms unite to form an atom this condensation stores up energy in a potential form, and it is when the atom disaggregates that this energy reappears in the form of heat (disengagement of heat by radium).
"Thus the reaction, ‘nebula to sun’, is exothermic. The reaction ‘isolated sub-atoms to atoms’ is endothermic, but I this ‘combination’ is endothermic how comes it to be so extraordinarily stable?".
Another member of the Academie des Sciences, M. Paul Painleve, formulates the same objection, as follows:---
"Thermodynamics teaches us the modifications which must be introduced into the celebrated principle of maximum work; we know that in a chemical combination stability and exothermism are not strictly synonymous. None the less there remains the possibility that a combination at the same time extraordinarily stable and extraordinarily endothermic is something contrary, not indeed to the principle of the conservation of energy, but to the whole body of facts which up to recent times have been scientifically established" (Revue Scientifique, 27 January 1906).
M. Naquet, late Professor of Chemistry at the Faculte de Medecine of Paris, who was unacquainted with M. Poincare’s conclusions, expressed the same objection.
"There is one point, however, which I find embarrassing, especially if I adopt the most seductive of all hypotheses, that of Gustave LeBon... If the atoms disengage heat in the process of self-destruction they are endothermic, and, by analogy, should be excessively unstable. Now, on the contrary, they are the most stable things in the universe.
"Here is a troublesome contradiction. We should not, however, attach to this difficulty more importance than it possesses. Every time great systems have arisen difficulties of this kind have occurred. The authors of such systems have paid no attention to them. If Newton and his successors had allowed the perturbations they observed to stop them, the law of universal gravitation would never have been formulated" (Revue d’Italie, March-April 1904).
The objection of M.M. Poincare, Painlee, and Naquet is evidently sound. It would be irrefutable were it applied to ordinary chemical compounds, but the laws applicable to the chemical equilibria do not appear to apply at all to intra-atomic equilibria. The atom alone possesses these two contradictory properties, of being at once very stable and very instable. It is very stable, since chemical reactions leave it sufficiently untouched for our balances to find it always the same weight. It is very instable, since such slight causes as a ray of the sun, or the smallest rise in temperature suffice to begin its dissociation. This dissociation is, no doubt, slight --- in relation to the enormous quantity of energy accumulated within the atom, and it no more changes its mass than a shovelful of earth withdrawn from a mountain appreciably changes the weight of the latter, We, therefore, have to do with special phenomena to which none of the customary laws of ordinary chemistry seem to apply. To put in evidence the special laws which regulate these new facts cannot be the work of a day. To interpret a fact is sometimes more difficult than to discover it.
M. Armand Gauthier, Member of the Institut and Professor of Chemistry at the Faculte de Medecine pf Paris, has also taken up the question of intra-atomic energy I an article published by him on the subject of my researches. He recognizes that it is in the form of gyratory movements that intra-atomic energy may exist. I have not wished to enter into too many details on this point here, because it is evidently only hypothetical, and have confined myself to comparing the atom to a solar system, a comparison at which several physicists have arrived by different roads. Without such movements of gyration it would be impossible to conceive a condensation of energy within the atom. With these movements it becomes easy to explain. Find the means, as I have pointed out above, to give a body of any size whatever, were it even less than that of a pin’s head, a sufficient speed of rotation, and you will communicate to it as considerable a provision of energy as you can desire. This is the precise condition which is realized by particles of atoms during their dissociation.
M. Despaux, an engineer, on the contrary, entirely rejects the existence of intra-atomic energy. Here are his reasons:
"It is the dissociation of matter which, according to Gustave LeBon, is the cause of the enormous energy manifested in radioactivity.
"This view is quite a new one, and revolutionary in the highest degree. Science admits the indestructibility of matter, and it is the fundamental dogma of chemistry; it admits the conservation of energy, and has made it the basis of mechanics. Here are two conquests one must then abandon. Matter transforms itself into energy and conversely.
"This conception is assuredly seductive and in the highest degree philosophical. But this transformation, it if takes place, only does so by a slow process of evolution. During any given epoch, all the phenomena studied by science lead to the belief that the quantity of matter and the quantity of energy are invariable.
"Another objection arises, and a formidable one: Is it possible that so trifling an amount of matter carries in its loins so considerable a quantity of energy? Our reason refuses to believe it” (Revue Scientifique, 1 January 1904).
Let us leave on one side the principle of the conservation of energy, which cannot evidently be discussed in a few lines, and remains, moreover, partly intact if it be recognized that the atom, by dissociation, simply gives back the energy it has stored up, at the beginning of the ages, during its transformation. The objections of M. Despaux reduce themselves, then, to this: reason refuses to admit that matter can conceal so considerable a quantity of energy. I simply reply that it is a question of an experimental fact, amply proved by the emission of particles endowed with a speed of the order of that of light, and by the large quantity of calories given forth by radium. The number of things that reason at first refused to recognize and yet had in the end to admit is considerable.
However, I am willing to acknowledge that this conception of the atom as an enormous source of energy, and of such energy that one gram of any substance whatever contains the equivalent of several thousand million kilogram-meters, is too much opposed to received ideas to penetrate rapidly into men’s minds. But this is solely due to the fact that the intellectual moulds fashioned by education do not change easily. M. Duchaud has put this excellently in an article on the same subject (Revue Scientifique, 2 April 1904), of which this is an extract: ---
"The consequences of the experiments of Gustave LeBon, which appear to rebel against the scientific dogmas of the conservation of energy and of the indestructibility of matter, have excited numerous objections. It follows that men’s minds hardly lend themselves to the admission that matter can emit spontaneously (that is, by itself and without any external aid) more or less considerable quantities of energy. This arises from that very old conception of the ‘duality of force and matter’ which, by bringing us to consider them two distinct terms, compels us to regard matter as by itself inert... One can regard matter as non-inert, as being ‘a colossal reservoir of forces that it is able to expend without borrowing anything from outside, without on that account attacking the principle of the conservation of energy.
"But the attack which aims at the indestructibility of matter seems more serious. Still, after due reflection, I think we should only see in this a question of words.
"As a matter of fact, Gustave LeBon presents to us four successive stages of matter... while showing that everything returns to ether, he allows also that everything proceeds from it. ‘Worlds are born therein, and go there to die’, he tells us.
"The ponderable issues from the ether, and returns to it under manifold influences. That is to say, the ether is a reservoir, at once the receptacle and the pourer-forth of matter. Now, unless we admit that there is a loss on the part of the ether, a leakage from the reservoir in the course of this perpetual exchange between the ponderable and the imponderable, it is impossible to conclude that there is a disappearance of any quantity of matter. And the idea of a loss on the part of the ether is inadmissible, for it leads to the absurd conclusion that that which is lost must diffuse itself outside space, since, by the hypothesis, the ether fills all space".
M. Laisant, examiner at the Ecole Polytechnique, expresses similar views in a paper on these researches: ---
"A small quantity of matter, for instance, a gram, contains, according to Gustave LeBon’s theory, an amount of energy which, if it were liberated, would represent thousands of millions of kilogram-meters. What becomes, on this conception, of the immaterial ether in which matter is about to lose itself? It is a sort of final nirvana, in the words of the author, an infinite and motionless nothingness, receiving everything and giving back nothing. In the stead of this eternal cemetery of the atoms, I strive to see in the ether rather the perpetual laboratory of nature. I would even do so far as to say that it is to the atom what, in biology, protoplasm is to the cell. Everything goes to and comes forth from it. It is a form of matter, at once its original and the final form" ("L’Enseignement Mathematique", 15 January 1906).
I have no reason to contradict the two authors last quoted on the fate of matter when it has disappeared. All I wanted to establish, in fact, was that ponderable mater vanishes without return by liberating the enormous forces it contains. Once returned to the ether, matter has irrevocably ceased to exist, so far as we are concerned. It has become something unrecognizable and eliminated from the sphere of the world accessible to our senses. There is assuredly a much greater distance between matter and ether than there is between carbon or nitrogen and the living beings formed from their combinations. Carbon and nitrogen can, in fact, indefinitely recommence their cycle by falling again under the laws of life; while matter returned to the ether can no more become matter again --- or at least can only do so by colossal accumulations of energy which demand long successions of ages for their formation, and which we could not produce without the power attributed in the Book of Genesis to the Creator.
It is, generally, mathematicians and engineer who receive my ideas with most favor. But in his inaugural discourse as President of L’Association Francaise pour l’Avancement des Sciences, M. Laisant, quoted above, produced one of my most important conclusions, and showed all the bearing it may have in the future. It is especially abroad, however, that these ideas have found most echo. Prof. Filippo Re detailed the matter length in the Rivista di Fisica, and in a technical review exclusively designed for engineers (Bull. De l’Assoc. des Ing. Ecole Polytech. De Bruxelles, December 1903)
Prof. Somerhausen has devoted to them a memoir from which I will give a few extracts because they show that in many thinking minds the fundamental principles of modern science have not inspired very unshakeable convictions.
...A Revolution in Science ~ This title is apt, for the facts and hypotheses of which we are about to treat tend to do nothing less than sap two principles we have admitted as the most unshakeable foundations of the scientific edifice... If one frees oneself from the tendency to arrange new facts in already known categories, one will have to admit that the remarkable facts we have examined cannot be explained by the known modes of energy, and they must necessarily be interpreted, with Gustave LeBon, as the manifestation of an energy hitherto unsuspected.
"We have established, on the one hand, the new phenomenon of atomic dissociation, and, on the other, the production of considerable energy without any possible explanation by known means. It is evidently logical to connect the two facts, and attribute to the destruction of the atom the freeing of the new energy --- of intra-atomic energy.
"Gustave LeBon supposes that the dissociated atom has acquired properties intermediate between matter and ether, and between the ponderable and the imponderable. But from the point of view of the effects, clearly everything takes place as if by a direct transformation from mater into energy... We therefore see matter here appearing as a direct source of energy. Which vitiates all the applications of the principle of the conservation of energy. And as we have had to admit the possibility of the destruction of matter, we have to admit the possibility of the creation of energy. We now begin to discern the possibility, by combining the terms matter and energy, of arriving at a definitive equation which may be looked upon as the highest symbol of the phenomena of the universe.
"It will certainly be one of the grandest conquests of science if we succeed, after having passed the stage of the unity of matter, in joining the domain of matter with that of energy, and thus clear away the last discontinuity in the structure of the world."
Among the objections which I ought to mention there is one which must certainly have occurred to the minds of many. It was formulated by Prof. Pio, on one of the four articles he published under the title "Intra-Atomic Energy" in an English scientific review (English Mechanic, 21 January, 4 March, 15 April, 12 May 1904). I will discuss it after reproducing a few passages from these articles.
"All the new phenomena --- cathode rays, emanations from radium, etc., have been explained by the doctrine of the dissociation of matter by Gustave LeBon" The phenomenon of the dissociation of matter discovered by the latter is a\s marvelous as it is astounding. It has not, however, excited the same attention as the discovery of radium, because the close link which connects these two discoveries has not been perceived... These experiments open a perspective to inventors which surpasses all dreams. There is in Nature an immense source of force which we do not know,,, Matter s no longer inert, but a prodigious storehouse of energy... The theory of intra-atomic energy leads to an entirely new conception of natural forces... Till no we have only known of forces acting on atoms from without: gravitation, heat, light, affinity, etc. now the atom appears as a generator of energy independent of all external force. All these phenomena will serve as a foundation for a new theory of energy".
The objection of the author to which I have alluded is this:
"How is it", he asks, "that particles emitted under the influence of intra-atomic energy with an enormous speed do not render incandescent by the shock the bodies they strike, and where does the energy expended go to?". The answer is: if the particles are emitted in sufficient numbers, they may in fact render metals incandescent by the shock, as is observed on the anti-cathode of Crookes’ tube. With radium, and still more with ordinary substances infinitely less active, the energy is produced too slowly to generate such important effects. At the most, as is the case with radium, it may raise the temperature of the mass of the body by two or three degrees. Radium releases, according to the measurements of Curie, 100 calorie-grams per hour, and this quantity could only raise the temperature of 100 grams of water by one degree in an hour. It is evidently too slight to raise in any appreciable way the temperature of a metal, especially if one considers that this would cool by radiation nearly as fast as it was heated.
Certainly it would be quite different if radium or any other substance were dissociate rapidly instead of requiring centuries for the purpose. The scholar who discovers the way to dissociate instantaneously one gram of any metal --- radium, lead, or silver --- will not witness the results of his experiment. The explosion produced would be so formidable that his laboratory and all the neighboring houses would be instantly pulverized. So complete a dissociation will probably never be attained, though M. de Heen attributes to explosions of this kind the sudden disappearance of certain stars. Yet there is hope that the partial dissociation of atoms may be rendered less slow. I assert this, not as the result of theory, but as of experiment, by the means set forth in the sequel, I have been able to render metals almost deprived of radioactivity, like tin, 40 times more radioactive than an equal surface of uranium.
The preceding discussion show that the doctrine of intra-atomic energy has attracted much more notice than that of the universality of the dissociation of matter. Yet the first-named was only the consequence of the second, and it was necessary to establish the facts before looking for the consequences.
It is especially these consequences which have made an impression. One of our most important publication, the Annee Scientifique, has remarked this very clearly in a summary of which I give some extracts: ---
"M. Gustave LeBon was the first, as we should not forget, to throw some light into this dark chaos, by sowing that radioactivity is not peculiar to a few rare substances, such as uranium, etc., but is a general property of matter, possessed in varying degrees by all bodies...
"Such is, briefly and in its larger outlines, Gustave LeBon’s doctrine, which upsets all our traditional acquirements as to the conservation of energy and the indestructibility of matter. Radioactivity, a general and essential property of matter, should be the manifestation of a new mode of energy and of a force --- the intra-atomic energy --- hitherto unknown.
"We do not yet know how to liberate and master this incalculable reserve of force, of which yesterday we did not even suspect the existence. But it is evident that when man shall have found the means to make himself its master, it will be the greatest revolution ever recorded in the annals of the genius of science, a revolution of which our puny brains can hardly grasp all the consequences and the extent".
The philosophic consequences of these researches have not escaped several scholars. In an analysis of the first edition of this work published in the Revue Philosophique for November 1905, M. Sagaret, an engineer, has fully shown these consequences. Here are some extracts from his article:
"No scientific theory has responded nor can better respond to our yearning for unity than that of Gustave LeBon. It sets up a unity than which it would be impossible to imagine anything more complete, and it focuses our knowledge on the following principle: one substance alone exists which moves and produces all things by its movements. This is not a new conception, it is true, for the philosopher, but it has remained hitherto a purely metaphysical speculation. Today, thanks to Dr Gustave LeBon, it finds a starting point in experiment.
"The scholar has till now stopped at the atom without perceiving any link between it and the ether. The duality of the ponderable and the imponderable seemed irreducible. Now the theory of the dematerialization of matter comes to establish a link between them.
"But it realizes scientific unity in yet another way by making general the law of evolution. This law,