Richmond times-dispatch. [volume], May 14, 1922, Image 62

About Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current

Image provided by: Library of Virginia; Richmond, VA

                
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But?Professor Aston
Declares That the Terrific
Explosive Power of
Hydrogen, as Now
Revealed, Is More
Likely to Serve Life
Than to Endanger It
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Professor
F. R. Aston, of
Cambridge
University,
England, Whose
Announcement
of the Discovery
of a Tremendous
Latent Force
in Hydrogen Is
of Profound
Interest to
Scientists.
?Rf
SCIENCE has Just
dlf covo red a
now force,
which, if it can be
commanded and con
trolled. n:av furnish
all mankind with
heat, light and power
In limitless quanti
ties.
It la the explosive
energy of hydrogen*
All that Is needed
Is to invent a ma
chine in which hydrogen may be "jammed
into a corner" and forced to break up.
Hut?and here's the rub?if such a ma
chine is invented, it might bo possible to
how up the entire earth with it?just aB
you explode a toy balloon by touching it
with a lighted cigarette!
Don't let this frighten you?or evea
cause you a moment's worry.
There is no practical danger that th?
world will ever come to sucu an ?-?nd. It
.-???>nce invents a hydrogen machine, it
will also discover some .say of harnessing
the power, Just as it has harnessed light
ning.
The statement that hydrogen, one of tho
simplest and common's, elements, con
such an amazing force, has just been
b>J-l>r. F. It. Aston. Fellow of Trinity
, Cambridge, Kngland who has just
uring in America on scientific
subjects, lie declares that the discovery
of th" explosive power of the hydrogen
i.- .rr< furnishes the first t? liable theory
of years, hut none of the tneones was
satisfactory. Or. Aston declares that hydro
g> n is the missing link.
Th.- scientific importance of tho theory
is that it brings into accord the two
sciences of geology and physics. In tho
[?a t there has been sharp conflict in th-i
efforts to reconcile what Is known about
cliemis'ry with what is known about the
The Famous Painting by Francis Danby, A. R. A., Illustrating the Force
of Divine Wrath in Its Action Upon the Earth, as
Described in Revelations, VI., 22.
Professor Aslon Has
Estimated That There
is Sufficient Hydrogen
in One Teaspoonful of
Water to Produce
200,000 Kilowatt
Hour* of Electrical
Energy. This Is Two
nnd Three-Quarter
Times Greater
Than the Electrical
Energy Generated
Every Hour by tho
Combined Plants at
Niagara Fails.
Photograph Showing Destruction Wrought by the Terrific
Explosion of 4,000 Tons of Ammonium Sulphate
Saltpeter at Oppau, Germany, When 2,000 Lives Wers
Lost, a Whole Town Wiped Out, Leaving a Crater 300
Feet Wide and <10 Foct Deep Where the
Explosion "Let Go."
age of tho earth. Geology needed a hun
dred million years i>r more- to account ior
the various phenomena found within its
field. Hut physics made this age impos
sible by showing that no known heating
element could possibly have lasted so long,
basing its contention on the known pres
ent rate of exhaustion of these (dements,
Hydrogen transforming itself, or being
transformed, into helium, is now believed
to furnish the explanation. According to
Dr. Aston, it is now possible to account in
positive physics for almos. any age for tho
earth that geology demands hccuusn o!
tho extraordinary energy created by tho
destruction of hydrogen in masses.
To put the discovery in practical terms.
It has been shown by experiments that
there is enough hydrogen in a teaspoonful
of water to produce 2U0.Ono kilowatt hours
oi electrical energy, merely by turning tho
hydrogen into helium. That energy i?,
roughly, equivalent to L'Ta.uOO horsepower.
in other words, there is nearly three
times as much energy, if it can be re
leased. in one teaspoonful of water ?s that
produced by ihe hundred million tons
thai pour over Niag.ua Falls every hour.
Niagara generates ion,otto horsepower
hourly.
"Should the research worker liscover
some means of releasing this energy in a
form which could he employed," says Pro
fessor Aston, "the human race will have at
its command powers beyond the dreams
of scientific fiction, but the remote possi
bility must always be considered that the
energy once liberated will be completely
nlor. Inc. Great Britain Kirht-- K<?<>rvi<).
uncontrollable and by its intense violence
detonate or explode all neighboring sub
stances.
"If that happens, all the hydrogen on
earth might be transformed at once (the
hydrogen in the air and the hydrogen in
tho oceans), and this most successful ex
periment might be published to the rest of
the universe in tho form of a new star 01
i xtrnordim.ry brilliance, as the earth blew
up in one vast explosion."
Almost simultaneously with Dr. Aston's
statement conies the announcement that i
group of American scientists, including
Dr. Robert A. Millikan, who isolated the
electron, are engaged in a series of experi
ments along thoso very lines
They are striving for the construction or
"cosmic crucibles" in which matter is to
be bombarded by high potentials of elec
tricity up to a million voits, with the Idea
of "breaking it up" nnd causing new ar
rangements or its atoms?exactly as i<i
suggested by Dr. Aston for tho "hydrogen
machine."
one of Dr. Milllkan's laboratories has al
ready been fitted tip at Pasadena. Califor
nia, and experiments are under way.
"A part of our program from a stand
point of phvsics." Dr. Millikan is quoted a3
Faying, "involves the use of tremendously
high potentials which furnish the on'y pos
sible means of bringing to bear here on
the.surface of tho earth such enormously
concentrated energies as aro presumably
at work among tho stars."
While scientists aro agreed that the
power to he derived from hydrogen in the
event it could be "exploded" in some such
maehino or crucible, would be great
enough to literally "blow up tho earth" If
it got out of control?they regard the pos
sibility of such an actual happening as
about as unlikely as that the world will bo
destroyed by final collision with a comet
or some other heavenly body.
It is a curious fact that old religious
teachings by those who took all tho state
ments of the prophets literally without
making any allowance whatever for alls
gorical intent, predicted just such an
end for the world as that which Dr. Aston
says would occur if it came through a tro
mondou.H hydrogen explosion.
They expected it to go out one day In
fire and flames. Such an imaginative
scene is depicted in the famous painting
of the "Opening ot the Sixth Seal," repro
duced on this page.
Harring such almost impossible acci
dents as a collision with a foniei or de
<:t ruction by human experiment with such
cosmic forces as hydrogen and atomic en
ergy, science regards it as likely that the
earth itself will last hundreds of millions
of years more.
*ln fact, science believes, it will last
much longer than tho human race, eco
logical relics, buried in tho strata of tho
earth's various ages prove that the climate
and temperature of the globe have varle.l
greatly at different times. There have
been periods when tiio whole ot what is
now tho United States of America was
covered with arctic glacial ice. Scientists
boo no reason why. in t.ie course of mil
lions of years, such violent changes in cli
mate may not come again, possibly so ex
treme that human life will either disap
pear entirely or become so changed to
meet new conditions, that our successors
may bo as different from the man of the
present as we aro different from a fish or
insect.
Or all organic life may first be de
rlroyed, and the earth may last for mil
lions of years afterward as a "dead world"
Mich as tho moon Is supposed to be to
day.
Millions, perhaps billions of yearp, will
pass, however, before such cosmic changes
occur. There is no reason, scientifically,
lo doubt that the earth will bo a habitable
place for sotyo form of life so long ns the
sun continues to giye light and heat, and I1
tho sun's heat is one to radio-active en
ergy. as some scientists have supposed, or
to the disintegration of hydrogen into he
lium, as Dr. Aston has just suggested, the
earth's chief luminary could remain "on
tho job" tor at. least another ten billion
years.