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About The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972 | View Entire Issue (May 21, 1922)
THE OTIEGON SUNDAY 1 JOWSAL,. P0BTLA2TO. U: t- Blow Up 1 But Exph -Professor Aston Declares That the Terrific 'osive Power of Hydrogen, as Now Revealed, Is More ' Likely to Serve Life Than to Endanger It ,-e ? tea 5. jw- is: 1 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. V A ' , , til -' o? 1 r X f .-..XX. So x- illli mmmmm&wm - , i " " ' - 'Ml S iCIENCE -has Just di sco v ered a new f ,o r c e, wjijcji, if it can be comnjanded and con trolled, may furnish all mankind with heat, light and power in limitless quanti ties. - It is 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. But and here's the rut) if such a m chine is invented, it might be possible to blow up the entire earth with it just as you explode a toy balloon by touching It' with a lighted cigarette! Don't let this frighten you or even cause you a moment's worry. There is no practical danger that the world will ever come to such an end. It science invents a hydrogen machine, it will also discover some, way of harnessing the -power, just as it has harnessed light ning. The statement that hydrogen, one of the simplest and commonest elements, con tains such an amazing force, has just been made by Dr. F. R. Aston, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, England, who has just been lecturing in America on scientific subjects. He declares that the. discovery ofthe explosive power of the hydrogen atom furnishes the - first tenable theory to account for the heat of. the sun. Here tofore scientists have held various theories of how the sun remained hot for millions ? - - 5 i V liill A:v;v:;ww;';JitiMaiMiilMai py 7 r , 3 i rr 3 IF . .AM.. SMS 2, ' - Hp of years, but none of the theories was satisfactory. Dr. Aston declares thatihydro gen is the missing link. i The scientific Importance of the (theory is that it brings into accord thie two sciences of geology and physics, jfo the past there has been sharp conflict jin the efforts to reconcile what is knownjj about chemistry with what is known about th The Famous Painting by Francis Danby, A. R. A., Illustrating the Force .- or Divine Wrath in Its Action Upon the Earth, as Described in Revelations, VI., 22. 41 5 lililpil Professor Alton' Has Estimated That There Is Sufficient Hydrogen in One Teaspoon ful of Water to Produce . 200,000 Kaowatt t Hours of Electrical Energy. This Is Two and Three-Quartet J Times Greater Than the Electrical Energy Generated Every Hour by the Combined Plants ! at "a - i. -4 K ... G, u, ! ! Niagara Falls. Photograph Showing Destruction Wrought by the Terrifio - Explosion! of 4,000 Tons of Ammonium Sulphate Saltpeter at Oppau, Germany, When 2,Q00 Lives Were : Lost, a Whole Town Wiped Out, Leaving a Crater 300 ' Feet Wide asd 40 Feet Deep Whefe the . Explosion 'Xet Go." ( ..." - . -. -. age of the earth- Geology needed a hun dred million years or more to account for "the various phenomena found within its field. But physics made this age impos sible by showing that no known heating element could possibly have lasted so long. basing its contention on th known pres-i ent rate of pxhauetlon. or tnese elements, nncpntrollable and by lts intense violence! end for the world as that which Dr. Aston detonate or explode all neighboring sub- says woul l occur if it came through a tra stances. , f ; . J mendous hydrogen explosion. "It that happens, all the hydrogen on ' They expected it to go out one day in' earth might be transformed at once (the fire and flames. Suchj an imaginative! hydrogen in, the air fcnd the hyarogen in scene is depicted in the famous painting' the' oceans), and this: most successful ex-' of the "Openinpr of the Sixth Seal," repro- perjment might be published to the rest of : duced on" this page. T I the! universe in th6 frm of a new star ot Barring euch almost impossible accl-' cxttaordintry brilliance, as the earth bler : dents as a collision ! with a comet or de- np. In one vast explosion.' I; etruction by human experiment with such 1 Almost simultaneously with Dr. Aston's i cosmic forces as hydrogen and atomic en-; statement comes the announcement that a ! ergy, science regards it as likely that the group of, American scientists, including j earth itself, will last hundreds of millions Dr.i Robert A. MiUikan, who isblated the .of years more. ! r electron, are engaged jin a series of expert- in fact, science believes, it will last: mehts along these very lines; h much longer than the human race. Geo-; They are striving for the construction ot j logical relics, buried in the strata! of the "cosmic crucibles'! Jlh which, matter is to earth's various ages prove that the climate be bombarded by High potentials of elec- and temperature of the globe have varie4; tricity. op to a million, votts, with tne iaea ; greatly at different times. . There have of fbreaking it upM and causing new ar- been periods when the! whole of what is I, ' . f . mvi'iiat. Hydrogen transforming itself, or being- transformed, into helium, Is! now believed rangements of its atoms exactly as iij now the United States of America was to furnish the explanation. ! According-to . suggested by Dr. Aston for the "hydrogen covered with arctic glacial ice. Scientists L)t. Aston, it is now possiDia to account , machine. . ! ; i : - m see no reason wny, in tu course! mti i pdsltive physics for almos; any age for the1 One of Dr. Millikan's laboratories has sf. lions of years, such ; violent changes in cli-i earth that geology demands because oil ready been fitted iop at Pasadena. Calif or-; -mate may not come again, possibly so ex the extraordinary energy created, by thai nia,and experiments are under way. iij treme that! human life will either dlisaif destruction of hydrogen in masses. ; j A part of our! program from a stand- pear entirely or become so changed to To put the discovery in Practical terjnsj " point of physics." 0r.-Miliikaa Is quoted as meet new conditions, that pur successors It has been shown by experiments that gaying, "involves the use of tremendously may le as; different from the man of the f there Is enough hydrogen in 4- teaspoonfnt high potentials which furnish the on"y poi! present as we are' different from a fish or of water to produce 200,000 kilqsvatt hoars . Bible means of bringing to bear here on' .Insect, f i j t 1 i ' ! 1 f! of electrical energy, merely ;by turlltag the the surface of the earth such enormously Or all "organic life may first be de- ' . . hydrogen into helium. That! energy is, concentrated , energies as are . prasumably slroyed, and the earth may last tor mil roughly, equivalent to 275,000 horsepower.', at :i work aunong the stars.. , 1 i . ; -, 'lions of years afterwar,d as a "dead, world", i In other words, there is nearly thre WhQe scientist are agreed that its such as the moon Is supposed to be to : times as much energy. If; it can be re-- power to be derived from hydrogen in-thei ; day. -; ' ' .leased. In oneiteaspoonful of water as that ' event it could be j"explodedi in some such - Millions,! perhaps: billions ef ryears,: will -produced by! the hundred million tons machine or crucible, i. would ! be v- great pass, however, before"snch cosmic changes . that ponr over. Niagara Falls every hour. ' enough to literally "blow. up the earth" II occur.. There is no reason, scientifically, Niagara generates 100.000 . horsepower - ft got out of control they regard the po- -to doubt that the earth! will be a habitable 'hourly. ' ; sihillty of such an actual happening aa plac for some form of life bo long as the t "Should the" research worker i ilsccrver 'about as unlikely -as that the world will be sun continves to give light and heat, and if, some means of releasing this energy in a destroyed by final collision i with ;s comit y the son's sheat Is due j to radio-active en form which could be employed. says Pro- or some other heavenly body.!; i ; ! f r if i - ergy, as some scientists haye supposed,r ' feasor Aston; rihe human race will have: at . it Is curious- fact that ; old religious to the .disintegration of hydrogen into he its, command: powers beyond- the dreams teachings by those who' took: all the staf 'Uum, as Dr. Aston has: Just suggested, the ot scientific fiction, but the remote possi- ments' of the "prophets ltterally without ' earth's chief luminary could, remain "on li-lf:infief mniMtmt thit (h linmni :hafev fnr alia- iha 4aK tnv at. lpflxt AnatYiPT tpn hffltoa 1022. br X&tematioasJ yeatareServtaa. 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