Effects of the rays of radium on plants effectsofraysofr1908gage Year: 1908 DISCOVERY AND NATURE OF RADIOACTIVITY II great violence, expelling in many cases a small portion of the disrupted atom at a high speed. The residue of the atom forms a new atomic system of less atomic weight, and possessing physical and chemical properties which markedly distinguish it from the parent atom. The atoms composing the new substance formed by the disintegration of the parent matter are also unstable, and break up in turn. The process of disintegration of the atom, once started, proceeds through a num- ber
Effects of the rays of radium on plants effectsofraysofr1908gage Year: 1908 DISCOVERY AND NATURE OF RADIOACTIVITY II great violence, expelling in many cases a small portion of the disrupted atom at a high speed. The residue of the atom forms a new atomic system of less atomic weight, and possessing physical and chemical properties which markedly distinguish it from the parent atom. The atoms composing the new substance formed by the disintegration of the parent matter are also unstable, and break up in turn. The process of disintegration of the atom, once started, proceeds through a num- ber of distinct stages. These new products formed by the succes- sive disintegrations of the parent matter are in most cases present in such extremely minute quantity that they cannot be investigated by ordinary chemical methods. . . . For any simple substance, the aver- age number of atoms breaking up per second is proportional at any time to the number present. In consequence the amount of radio- active matter decreases in a geometrical progression with time.' Rutherford''^ illustrates these changes by the following diagram* (figure i). The time periods given indicate how long is required oo
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