THE OTIEGON
SUNDAY 1 JOWSAL,. P0BTLA2TO.
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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,
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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
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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
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