The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry

Radium compounds send forth three kinds of rays, distinguished as alpha, beta, and gamma rays. Experiments have made it extremely probable that the [alpha]-rays are streams of very minute particles, somewhat heavier than atoms of hydrogen, moving at the rate of about 18,000 miles per second; and that the [beta]-rays are streams of much more minute particles, the mass of each of which is about one one-thousandth of the mass of an atom of hydrogen, moving about ten times more rapidly than the [alpha]-particles, that is, moving at the rate of about 180,000 miles per second. The [gamma]-rays are probably pulsations of the ether, the medium supposed to fill space. The emission of [alpha]-rays by radium is accompanied by the production of the inert elementary gas, helium; therefore, the [alpha]-rays are, or quickly change into, rapidly moving particles of helium. The particles which constitute the [beta]-rays carry electric charges; these electrified particles, each approximately a thousand times lighter than an atom of hydrogen, moving nearly as rapidly as the pulsations of the ether which we call light, are named electrons. The rays from radium compounds discharge electrified bodies, ionise gases, that is, cause them to conduct electricity, act on photographic plates, and produce profound changes in living organisms. The radium emanation is a gas about 111 times heavier than hydrogen; to this gas Sir William Ramsay has given the name niton. The gas has been condensed to a colourless liquid, and frozen to an opaque solid which glows like a minute arc-light. Radium emanation gives off [alpha]-particles, that is, very rapidly moving atoms of helium, and deposits exceedingly minute quantities of a solid, radio-active substance known as radium A. The change of the emanation into helium and radium A proceeds fairly rapidly: the half-life period of the emanation is a little less than four days. This change is attended by the liberation of much energy.