The Evolution of Matter - the book The Evolution of Matter - Table of Contents
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FORCES DERIVED FROM INTRA-ATOMIC ENERGY - MOLECULAR FORCES, ELECTRICITY, SOLAR HEAT, ETC.
§ I. The Origin of Molecular Forces.
ALTHOUGH matter was formerly considered inert, and only capable of preserving and restoring the energy which had first been given to it, yet it was necessarily established that there existed within it forces sometimes considerable, such as cohesion, affinity, osmotic attractions and repulsions, which were seemingly independent of all external agents. Other forces, such as radiant heat and electricity, which also issued from matter, might be considered simple restitutions of an energy borrowed from outside.
But if the cohesion which makes a rigid block out of the dust of atoms of which bodies are formed, or if that affinity which draws apart or dashes certain elements one upon the other and creates chemical combinations, or if the osmotic attractions and repulsions which hold in dependency the most important phenomena of life, are visibly forces inherent to matter itself, it was altogether impossible with the old ideas to determine their source. The origin of these forces ceases to he mysterious when it is known that matter is a colossal reservoir of energy. Ob-
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servation having long ago shown that any form of energy whatever lends itself to a large number of transformations, we easily conceive how, from intra-atomic energy may be derived all the molecular forces: cohesion, affinity, etc., hitherto so inexplicable. We are far from being acquainted with their character, but at least we see the source from which they spring.
Outside the forces plainly inherent to matter that we have just enumerated, there are two, electricity and solar heat, the origin of which has always remained unknown, and which also, as we shall see, find an easy explanation by the theory of intra-atomic energy.
When we approach the detailed study of the facts on which are based the theories set forth in this work, we shall find that electricity is one of the most constant manifestations of the dissociation of matter. Matter being nothing else than intra-atomic energy itself, it may be said that to dissociate matter is simply to liberate a little intra-atomic energy and to oblige it to take another form. Electricity is precisely one of these forms.
For a certain number of years the role of electricity has constantly grown in importance. It is at the base of all chemical reactions, which are more and more considered as electrical reactions. It appears now as a universal force, and the tendency is to connect all other forces with it. That a force of which the manifestations have this importance and universality should have been unknown for thousands of years constitutes one of the most striking facts in
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the history of science, and is one of those facts we must always bear in mind to understand how we may be surrounded with very powerful forces without perceiving them.
For centuries all that was known about electricity could be reduced to this: that certain resinous sub- stances when rubbed attract light bodies. But might not other bodies enjoy the same property? By extending the friction to larger surfaces might not more intense effects still be produced? This no one thought of inquiring. Ages succeeded each other before there arose a mind penetrating enough to ask itself such questions, and inquisitive enough to verify by experiment whether a body with a large surface when rubbed would not exercise an action superior in energy to that produced by a small fragment of the same body. From this verification which now seems so simple, but which took so many years to accomplish, we saw emerge the frictional electric machine of our laboratories and the phenomena it produces. The most striking of these were the apparition of sparks and violent discharges which revealed to an astonished world a new force and put into the hands of man a power of which he thought the gods alone possessed the secret.
Electricity was then only produced very laboriously and was considered a very exceptional phenomenon. Now we find it everywhere and know that the simple contact of two heterogeneous bodies suffices to generate it. The difficulty now is not how to produce electricity, but how not to give it birth during the production of any phenomenon whatever. The falling of a drop of water, the heating of a gaseous mass by the sun, the raising of the temperature of a twisted
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wire, and a reaction capable of modifying the nature of a body, are all sources of electricity.
But if all chemical reactions are electrical reac- tions, as is now said to be the case, if the sun cannot change the temperature of a body without disengag- ing electricity, if a drop of water cannot fall without producing it, it is evident that its r6le in the life of all beings must be preponderant. This, in fact, is what we are beginning to admit. Not a single change takes place in the cells of the body, no vital reaction is effected in the tissues, without the intervention of electricity. M. Berthelot has recently· shown the important r6le of the electric tensions I to which plants are constantly subjected. The varia- tions in the electric potential of the atmosphere are enormous, since they may oscillate between 600 and 800 volts in fine weather, and rise to 15,000 volts at the least fall of rain. This potential increases at the rate of from 20 to 30 volts per metre in height in fine and from 400 to 500 volts in rainy weather for the same elevation. "These figures," he says, "give an idea of the potential which exists either between the upper point of a rod of which the other extremity is earthed, or b~hveen the top of a plant or a tree, and the layer of air in which that point or that top is bathed." The same scholar has proved that the effiuves generated by these differences of tension can provoke numerous chemical reactions: the fixation of nitrogen on hydrates of carbon, the dissociation of carbonic acid into carbonic oxide and oxygen, etc.
After having established the phenomenon of the general dissociation of matter, I asked myself if the umversal electricity, the origin of which remained
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unexplained, as not precisely the consequence of the universal dissociation of matter. I\Iy experiments fully verified this hypothesis, and they proved that electricity is one of the most important forms of intra-atomic energy liberated by the dematerialization of matter. I was led to this conclusion after having satisfied myself that the products which escape from a body electrified at sufficient tension are entirely identical with those given out by radio- active substances on the road to dissociation. The various methods employed to obtain electricity, notably friction, only hasten the dissociation of matter. I shall refer, for the details of this demonstration, to the chapter treating of the subject,1 confining myself at present to pointing out summarily the different generalizations which flow from the doctrine of intra-atomic energy. It is not electricity alone, but also solar heat, which, as we shall see, may be considered one of its manifestations.
§ 3· Origin of Solar Heat.
As we have fathomed the study of the dissociation of matter, so has the importance of this phenomenon proportionately increased. After recognizing that electricity may be considered one of the manifestations of the dissociation of matter, I asked myself whether this dissociation and its result, the liberation of intra-atomic energy, were not also the cause, till now so unknown, of the maintenance of solar heat. The various hypotheses hitherto invoked to explain the maintenance of this heat - the supposed fall of meteorites on the sun, for example - having all seemed extremely inadequate,
1 Pp.198elseq.infra.
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it was necessary to seek others. Given the enormous quantity of energy accumulated within the atoms, it would be enough, if their dissociation were more rapid than it is on the cooled globes, to furnish the amount of heat necessary to keep up the incandecence of the stars. And there would be no need to presume, as was done when radium w.a.s supposed to be the only body capable of producing heat while dissociating, the unlikely presence of that substance in the sun, since the atoms of all bodies contain an immense store of energy.
To maintain that stars such as the sun can keep up their own temperature by the heat resulting from the dissociation of their component atoms, seems much like saying that a heated body is capable of maintaining its temperature without any contribution from outside. Now, it is well known that an incandescent body-a heated block of metal, for instance - when left to itself rapidly cools by radiation, though it be the seat of considerable atomic dissociation. But it cools, in fact, simply because the rise in temperature produced by the dissociation of its atoms during incandescence is far too slight to compensate for its loss of heat by radiation. The substances which, like radium, most rapidly dissociate, can hardly maintain their temperature at more than 3" to 4°C. above that of the ambient medium. Suppose, however, that the dissociation of any substance whatever were only one thousand times more rapid than that of radium, then the quantity of energy emitted would more than suffice to keep it in a state of incandescence.
The whole question therefore is whether, at the origin of things-that is to say, at the epoch when
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atoms were formed by condensations of an unknown nature, they did not possess such a quantity of energy that they have been able ever since to maintain the stars in a state of incandescence, thanks to their slow dissociation. This supposition is supported by the various calculations I have given as to the immense amount of energy contained within the atom:. The figures given are considerable, and yet J. J. Thomson, who has recently taken up the question anew, arrives at the conclusion that the energy now concentrated within the atoms is but an insignificant portion of that which they formerly contained and lost by radiation. Independently and at an earlier date, Professor Filippo Re arrived at the same conclusion.
If, therefore, atoms formerly contained a quantity of energy far exceeding the still formidable amount they now possess, they may, by dissociation, have expended during long accumulations of ages a part of the gigantic reserve of forces piled up within them at the beginning of things. They may have been able, and consequently may still be able, to maintain at a very high temperature stars like the sun and the heavenly bodies. In the course of time, however, the store of intra-atomic energy within the atoms of certain stars has at length been reduced, and their dissociation has become slower and slower.
Finally, they have acquired an increasing stability, have dissociated very slowly, and have become such as one observes them to-day in the shape of cooled stars like the earth and other planets.
If the theories formulated in this chapter be correct, the intra-atomic energy manifested during the dematerialization of matter constitutes the funda- mental element whence most other forces are derived.
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So that it is not only electricity which is one of its manifestations, but also solar heat, that primary source of life and of the majority of the forces at our disposal. Its study, which reveals to us matter in a totally new aspect, already permits us to throw unforeseen light on the higher mechanics of our universe.
The Evolution of Matter - the book
The Evolution of Matter - Table of Contents
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