The interpretation of radium : being the substance of six free popular experimental lectures delivered at the University of Glasgow, 1908 / by Frederick Soddy ; with illustrations.

  • Soddy, Frederick, 1877-1956.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The interpretation of radium : being the substance of six free popular experimental lectures delivered at the University of Glasgow, 1908 / by Frederick Soddy ; with illustrations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    222/306 (page 180)
    i So INTERMEDIA TE PROD UCTS materials used in these later experiments, the amount formed in a single hour would be greater than has actually been formed in three years. In the earlier experiments, with not specially purified uranium, the growth of radium, although quite detectable, was still only one thousandth part of what would have occurred had uranium X changed directly into radium. In spite of this apparently conclusive negative result, it is practically certain at the present time that uranium is the original parent of radium, and that in the course of years our preparations will begin to grow radium. The natural explanation of this failure to detect a growth of radium from uranium is, that one or more intermediate bodies of lono- life exists in the O disintegration series between uranium and radium. On the analogy proposed, this means that between Loch Katrine and Milngavie reservoir one or more laroe intermediate reservoirs exist, which have to fill up before the water reaches Milngavie. Uranium X represents the first of such a series of intermediate reservoirs, it is true, but owing to its short period of life and the large fraction of the total quantity always passing through on the way to the next, such a reservoir would be an extremely small one, and for periods such as we are considering its effect on the flow would be practically negligible.