Word: photons
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...authors close their volume with a discussion of the Quantum Theory. Max Planck provided the first experiments and Einstein the early theory which regards energy as released and received not in continuous flow but in separate little bundles called quanta. A quantum of light is called a photon. Einstein used early Quantum Theory to explain photoelectric action-the ability of photons to knock electrons out of metals...
Some weeks ago George Eric MacDonnell Jauncey got a hunch that the X-particle was originally an ordinary electron whose mass had somehow been increased. He imagined what would happen if a high-energy cosmic ray photon struck an electron in the upper atmosphere. Most of the transferred energy would simply give the electron a high-velocity kick. But some of it might be converted into matter which the electron would absorb, increasing its mass. The increase might be any amount at all, depending on the initial energy of the cosmic ray and the variable quantity of matter produced...
...rays v. Cells. Using X-ray bombardments much more prolonged and severe than those employed in medicine, Dr. Hugo Fricke of the Long Island Biological Laboratory arrived at a theory of what happens when an X-ray photon (unit of radiation) is received in a living cell. The high energy carried on the photon swings the electrons of the cell up to correspondingly high energy levels which represent temperatures of 1,000,000°. This lasts for only some .00001 sec., but large protein molecules may be broken up, carbon dioxide and hydrogen given off, and water molecules...
...discoveries so far would seem to indicate that the long-hoped for decomposition of the atom is not an impossibility," stated Jabez C. Street, instructor in Physics and director of this research, when asked to comment on the possibilities of the work. "Since the photon leaves no track, it loses none of its energy in passing through the air. It there fore has much more energy with which to disintegrate the nuclei than the electron. As a result of this fact, it has a high efficiency in bombarding nuclei. It remains therefore only to discover the practical application of this...
...matter and light, only to discover that their movements are unpredictable. This "complexity of small-scale events," leads Dr. Compton toward resolving the dilemma of freedom v. law, which is "as essential to the welfare of science as it is to the growth of religion." If a little photon of light can move capriciously, so can man by exercise of will. Thus Dr. Compton sees "the whole great drama of evolution as moving toward the goal of personality, the making of persons, with free, intelligent wills, capable of learning nature's laws, of glimpsing God's purpose...