by Open Mind » Thu Mar 16, 2023 11:46 pm
very cool. They were so close back in the day it seems. Pre spectroscopic analysis. pre so many things.
"If the theory of radioactive transformation continues to inspire a growing degree of confidence, it will result in an important consequence for geology, and will lead to a careful study of the proportions of the elements occurring in rocks, with a view to deduce their relative ages."
"Here, then, we appear to have, in embryo, a transmutation of the elements, the possibility of which has for so long been the guess and the desire of alchemists."
""How comes it, then, that matter is still in existence? Why has it not already all broken down, especially in these very radioactive and therefore presumably rapidly decadent forms of radium and the like?" the question naturally directs us to seek some mode of origin for atoms, to conjecture some falling together of their pristine material, some agglomeration of the separate electrons of which they are hypothetically composed, such as is a familiar idea when applied to the gravitational aggregates of astronomy which we call nebula and suns and planets."
[quote=Cargo post_id=9240 time=1678919412 user_id=6759]
Whoa, get a load of this.
https://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=U2UI8CZL3DIYSUY
Radium is quite the magic element. I think they're looking to use it as a fuel. Not the other way around.
[/quote]
very cool. They were so close back in the day it seems. Pre spectroscopic analysis. pre so many things.
"If the theory of radioactive transformation continues to inspire a growing degree of confidence, it will result in an important consequence for geology, and will lead to a careful study of the proportions of the elements occurring in rocks, with a view to deduce their relative ages."
"Here, then, we appear to have, in embryo, a transmutation of the elements, the possibility of which has for so long been the guess and the desire of alchemists."
""How comes it, then, that matter is still in existence? Why has it not already all broken down, especially in these very radioactive and therefore presumably rapidly decadent forms of radium and the like?" the question naturally directs us to seek some mode of origin for atoms, to conjecture some falling together of their pristine material, some agglomeration of the separate electrons of which they are hypothetically composed, such as is a familiar idea when applied to the gravitational aggregates of astronomy which we call nebula and suns and planets."