Atom Blasting

Predicting the end of the world has been immemorially the privilege and pastime of religious fanatics and charlatans. In modern times such predictions have been the province of loose-spoken scientists and the sensational Press. The cry of modern world-enders is that if anyone ever succeeds in exploding one atom of Matter, the whole universe will go off like a bunch of firecrackers. Last week, when Hearst newsmen discovered that two brave young German scientists plan shortly to try to crack an atom and convert it into radiation, the doomsday story was given another twirl. "A colossal catastrophe might ensue," declared the New York American. "Will this planet, twirling peacefully a million years,* be blown to smithereens?"

The experiment is to be performed at the Berlin Institute of Physical Research. Artificial lightning of 15 million volts, most ever created by man, will be generated to hurl at the atoms by a new secret invention. In the quiet courtyard of the institute, the German scientists have constructed a unique laboratory--an aluminum-lined chamber which looks like a huge boiler. It is built half underground on a concrete foundation.

By irradiation or penetrating bullets of energy, scientists have often shot away from the atom the electrons which spin about the nucleus. But if they were able to wedge apart the stable nucleus, change the number and arrangement of its protons and electrons, they could transmute one element to another, unloosing at the same time tremendous energy. It has been estimated that one million horsepower would be given off for one hour in forming 4 gr. of helium out of hydrogen. If man could make positive and negative charges rush together, annihilate their substance and become transformed into light rays, as they are believed to do in the sun's atoms, he could produce still more energy. By using fast alpha rays, Sir Ernest Rutherford, British physicist, has already knocked some protons out of the nitrogen nucleus. Last year another scientist pried into the atom's heart without blowing up the universe or himself: Dr. William Draper Harkins of the University of Chicago shot helium at nitrogen atoms, smashed them to form fluorine (TIME, April 21).

Regarding the impending German experiment, U. S. scientists spoke last week as follows:

Professor Henry Norris Russell, astronomer of Princeton University: "The final effect might be anything from one so small it could hardly be detected to a colossal catastrophe. But present scientific indications do not give ground for alarm."

Dr. Merle A. Tuve, Carnegie Institution at Washington: "We know the amount of energy that is contained in the nucleus of the atom. But nobody yet knows its nature sufficiently to be able to tell how, if at all, such energy could be released for practical uses."

Dr. Harold Clayton Urey, chemist of Columbia University: "The experiment may cause another industrial revolution of greater magnitude than that caused by the use of steam and electricity."

Professor Isidor Isaac Rabi, physicist of Columbia University: "As to blowing up the world by releasing a tremendous quantity of atomic energy--that's most improbable. The worst that could happen is that the scientists might be burned up."

*The earth's age has been computed to be from 40 million to two billion years.

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