december 17, 1938
TRANSCRIPT
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from us. It is not
lirdevmt
to recall th t before the war
the S b r d ,
Texas and Gulf c m p i e s were allies of
such
gre t
Nazi concerns as
I. G
Farben against e
A,nglo-Dutah oil and rubber conhimtiom.Thiskind
of d-Brikish
kdk plap beautifully into German hands.
“he kind
of
thinking
the
Senate has done
in is
fidd ia id ia ted by the T m n eport’s discussion of
tihe
role g o v m t
hould
play in the Arabian develop-
ment Governmentownershipof foreign oil
m c e s s i m q
the
report says,
“would pmuppase
a
radical
ahmlge in
our economic system,” while “pa d government
owner-
ship . might
discourage
private enterprise.” Did
Britain become a socialist c o w
when
GhumhilJ h~
191
under h i l a r ci,rcum.stances, k i s t e d an
ahnhing
for the
Bribish
government majority control of the s t o c k
of
the Anglo-Persian Oil Ccxmlpany
toms t Work
BY ORLANDO ALOYSIUS BATTISTA
URING the p a t decade or
two
scientists have
literally exploded the atom and in
so
doing have
brought toight many phenemenal universes
never dreamed of before. By a rather simple calculation,
if you know how to make
~ t can be
shown th t bhe
air whi& m p i e s the fmger space in a thimble contains
at least thirty
b1Flmn
molecules. If all the docks in the
world were kept wound up, it would take them
a
hun-
dred centuries
or more
to
tidc out the
number
of atoms
in
a
single dmmp of rain water. If you were able to count
the a t o m on the surface of speck of dust which could
be seen
o y under a
miuoucope,
you would find they
nmlbered ni1,lions.So w‘hen we balk a b u t atoms we are
talking about infinitesimally small p r t i c l e s of matter,
particles
so small that man wi l never be able to see them
no
matter how powerful he may build his microscopes.
Fifty years ago these atoms were looked upon
by
the
world’s foremost scientists as hard, discrete, indivisible
particles of matter which formed the building bricks of
evgrphing
in the universe. But the concapt
of
the mc-
ture of matter that had held sway for some twenty-
five centuries crumbled into myth when such men as
Thomson, Rutherford, Lawrence, and a host of others
published the results
of
their researches. Today we know
with the certainty that comes from reliable experimental
evidence that each little atom is a veritable universe in
itself, having a sun-llke nucleus at its center and many
planetary electrons-unitsof pure electricity-whirling
about this core at speeds exceedingthose
of m y
lanets
in
thei’rorbits.
The discovery of the atom universes with their incredi-
bIe rides was speeded up by the invention of an Ameri-
can scientist, Ernest Odando Lawrence. A liltftle more
an en years ago Professor Lawreace succeeded in pro-
duci’ng
a
powerful atomsmashing machine, called a
C$otron, which already has opened up dozens of new
avenues of
scientific
research. More than forty of these
machines are now in existence, most
of
them in th
United States. The originalone is at Charter Hill
in
Berkeley, California, where
its
inventor,
with
the
aid of
a capable group of associate scientists, hopes to use it
to
reveal even greater marvels
in
the hidden world of the
atom. The Charter Hill Cyclotron is
so
powerful that
it
will be able to produce invisible electric bdleits pro-
Fl led by more than 100,000,000 volts and traveling at
a speed in excess of 50,000 miles a second. Thqpene-
tratmg power of
the
“accelerated” electrical particles
will be so intense that they could be made
to
cut through
steel very much
as
a knife cuts through butter. T h e scien-
tists who
run
this monster have
to
operate
it
by remote
control
in
rooms
150
feet distant.
A
glance at a few of the momentous discoveries made
by our atom-srn&hing scientists delving into tnabtef
with electric rays instead of microscopes showsthe possi-
blllties of fur,ther work in this field.
We
know now, for
example, that all mtter, even the armor-plateon OW
battleships, is literally
fu l l
of holes. I t has been proved
beyond question that 99 9 p e r cent of the mass of ll
matter is concentrated at
a
mathematical point in the
center of each ztom universe. This leaves so much free
space inside the atom
that
the core, which contains all
the weight, may be compared to an orange suspended in
the center
of
Radio City Music Hall. T he human
body is
so
full of empty spaces that if
we
removed all
of
them
from Joe Louis he would shrink
to
the size
of
an aspirin
tablet.
But smashing the atom has brought forth a lot
mre
than this amazmg fact. N u d m physicists can
bombard
an
atom of mercury and change it into gold, an atan of
magnesium and change it intos o d i m .
In
addition to
ing able to make new elements almost at wdl-thcrugh
in relatively minute quantities at
the
present time-scien-
tists
can
bombard
&a
atoms of some of uz
most
inex-
pensive salts wibh extremely fast electrically charged or
neutral blts of matter and obtain
what
are known as
radloactlve salsts. These salts are of great value in medi-
cine, for
they
are
as effedive
as radlum m curing certain
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t idi gna n, t diseases. T heir rays are as
patent
as radim’s,
but
&hey give them
off for
only
a
f ew
days
whereas ra-
dium
wlll
contlnue to give
off
powtrful radiations for
a e n h i e s .
For this Ieason
the
artificially
produced
radio-
active
salts are more pradical
to
use an adium, besides
being
far
less
expensive.
An
important field of radioactive
research
today is
concerned
with
the quest or
speciiic radioactive
salts
that
u e not harmful and hat will allocate hemselves
selectively in cancerous
parts of
t he human body. Since
it
L known
that
cancerous issue can
be
destroyed by
means of carefully controlled exposure to radioactivity,
the
possibility of disp tchin g nto variouspartsof the
human body tracer
bullets
short-lived
in
their potency
and capable of destroying diseased tissues seledively
is
a goal whose achievement
w d d
be invaluable to medi-
cal
science.
when iodine that
has been
made radioactive is taken
internally,
it collects
in the thyroid gland, tendency
that
has enabled
us to
learn most
of
what we know about the
workings
of
this
vitally
important
gland. Radioactive
calcium
accumu
in the
body
in
exactly
the
same
man
ner tu calcium whlch s not radioactive; with ts aid t
has been
demonstrated
hat evenwhen o w
eeth
are fully
developed they continue
to
absorb calcium from the food
we
eat A speck of radioactive iron put in e food eaten
by a cow
enables
us
to
s e e
that
in
ten minutes’ time th e
Iron is present
i n t he
cow’s
milk By putting radioactive
subst nces
in
sdutionzr or s d upon whi& plan
de-
pend
for their
nourishment,
s b
ave
gained an
intelligent insight into th e complicated synthesis bywhich
a
plmt convertswater
and
sunlight nto sugars a n d
staxehes.
When
e
elem ent p r i m
is
d e
adioactive
it
can
be
used
to deteot
flam
in
babbleship
aprnor. Of
course,
e reason
these adioactivemateriais
can be
used to suah great advantageis
that
they
give
thenuelves
away by the radiations they are constantly sending out.
Rxkrerndp sensitive eleatrossopic detedom h ve been de-
veloped
whim
perm it s c i d t s
to chart
their mutes
Pacuratdy.
T h e a tom
also
offers
us
unlimitedstores
of
energy.
Physicists haveauthoritatively proclaimed
th t
there
is
enough
usefulenergy
locked
u p i n
a
jug ofwater
to
furnish more than a billion
kilowatt-hours
of
electpic
power.
The extraction of energy from
the
atom has up
to
now been accomplished only
in a
very small way. T h e
difficulties
to
be over tome
in this
field
of atomic utility
w far mre
oMnatc
than
those
encountered in adapt-
in g radioactive substances for usu in medicine, biochem-
kry or genetics.
Nevertheless, there is
definite
promise
that some day
it will be
p l b l e
to
extrack and control
atomic energy.
Thus
e
remmhble
work
of
a&t scientis,ts
s bene-
g mankind in
a rhousand
ways,
and e u p r q
f a c t L h t t h & w o r k h a s d y k g u r . h
In
the Wind
N
~
UMBER,
PLEASE The commandant of an a m y
camp tried to telephone an officer at his home in B
nearby community. Th e officer’s phone was on
a
three-party
line, and for half an hour the commandant got no hl ng but ,
busy
signals.
Finally
h e
called the operator and asked
if
something couldn’t be done about it. “After
all,”
hesald,
“ t isn‘t such
long distance.
I could
walk there in half
nn
hour.“ “Okay, Bud,” replied the operator, “get walkin’.”
THE BRITISH
GOVERNMENT
has taken official cog
nizance of
the
servant problem. The London Daily
MdiL
reports
at Mr. Bevin’s office is going into the matter and
will probably make recomm endations
BS to
minimum wages
and
maximum hours.
PHONOGRAPH-RECORD
COLLECTORS
ell
us
they
are
no longer allowed to do any internahonal swapping. It
seems
that someecords ave unintelligible background oises
which the authoritla fear might possibly be code messages.
GEO RGIA’S SUPREME CO UR T bas declined for the sec-
ond tima to review an examination on the basis of which
the State Board of Bar Examlners has refused to recommend
a license for George Hlmer
Ross,
a
Negro.
T h e law requlres
the board
to
recommend llcenses
for
all who
pass
its exam-
inations. Mr. Ross,
a
graduate of
the
University of Chicago
Law
School, insists that
h e
made more than
a
passing grade.
In refusing to look
at
the evidence, the o u r t held that bhe
board
is
h e sole judge of grades and
that
there is no appeal
from its decisions.
SEVENTEEN LIVES WERE
LOST
when
the
steamer
Northern
went
down
a
year
ago.
The Union Steamship
Company, owner
of
the
ship,
was recently tried and fou nd
guilty
of
providing insdcient lifeboat accommodations. The
penalty Wao d.fine
of 100.
THE
QUALITY
of the
news broadcasts of
the
Nazi-con-
trolled Paris
radfo
is indicated by
this
lteml “Alvarez del
Vayo-typical
representative of
those
Soviet-minded
pohti-
c i a n s who led Spain
to
her Calvary-has been in Casablanca
since
January 11.”
The st of
The Nation
wonderswho
b a t man is who comes into the office everyday. He looks,
talks, bhhks, and wrltes exactly like AIvatez del Vayo.
FESTUNG
EUROPA: German reserve officers employed as
supervisors in Belgian actorieshave been recalled o
Ger-
many for active service . . Severalmembers
of
Vidkun
Quisling’s private bodyguard have been arrested
for
Ilsten-
ings to news broadcasts from Lmndon. . Th e greatness of
&ha Nazi soul
wsd
recentlydemonstrated in Holland when
a
quarrel over precedence between two officials of the
Dutch
“ hamber of
Culture”
made it necessq to hold
tw
formal
openings
of an exhibition.
[ s nvite our renders t o
submit
m leri l for In the Wind
” e i h r clippings with source and
d d s or
stories that
c u
6 2 t mrly authenticated. A
prize
of 3 will be muarded e ch
m4rit.J 7 ~ ’I?
b=r/
~~W . - - - E- D ITO R S
THE
NATION.)
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