Word: cosmical
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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More Matter. The physicists are creeping up on the origin of matter. Dr. Robert Andrew Millikan of the California Institute of Technology, pursuing his study of the cosmic ray, has illuminated new chapters in the celestial life of the hydrogen atom. Those infinitely tiny but infinitely active particles not only leap at each other explosively to form helium, but also by special jumps unite to form oxygen and nitrogen. The exact nature of the jump is not yet fully understood, but each different jump shoots off its own private signal, a ray of definite power...
...bobbed hair antennae. New species came into existence, the special marks of the X-ray were transmitted down the generations. Biologist Muller tried the effect of other agents on the germ plasm. Treatment with lead, arsenic, poisons which were known to change cells had no effect. X-rays and cosmic rays are the only forces in nature that can shake up the germ cells, changing their original plan of development, making the changes hereditary in many cases. X-rays and cosmic rays exist everywhere. They may, thinks Dr. Muller, be responsible for all changes in the evolutionary tree...
This was the energy that Millikan demonstrated in the cosmic ray (TIME, March 26). But the helium-nitrogen activity seems to be just the opposite. When helium and nitrogen collide and explode, forming oxygen and hydrogen, energy appears to be stored rather than given off. From this have arisen arguments which support the theory of Prof. Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin-that the earth has been built up by the aggregation of smaller bodies such as meteorites or planetesimals, in which energy has been stored...
...subjects of the lectures are as follows: April 9--Discovery of the Electron; April 11--Ether Wayes, Visible and Invisible; April 13--Atomic and Sub-Atomic Magnitudes; April 16--Light Darts; April 18--Relativity Inside the Atom; April 20--Cosmic Rays...
...abundance of both hydrogen and helium. What is more plausible than that the one should be created from the other? On the side of physics, there are no other nuclear changes which could take place, as far as science knows now, that would be powerful enough to produce the cosmic ray discovered by Dr. Millikan. On the side of philosophy, the tearing-down process of radio activity represented by the disintegration of heavy atoms into lighter ones, has been known for 30 years. Why, then, should there not be a building-up process represented by the creation of elements from...