Abstract
MANY will probably be attracted by the first word of the title of this book, and buy it in the hope of obtaining light arid leading on the new discoveries. Such, we fear, are likely to be sadly disappointed. The book is an apparently verbatim report of a lecture delivered at a meeting of the American Electrochemical Society and the Institute of Electrical Engineers. It is difficult to understand why it was reprinted in its present form, for most of the interest seems to have centred in the experiments and exhibits that accompanied the lecture. For example, we read, “Here are a couple of postal cards which I secured in Europe showing the Blue Grotto at Capri. They are printed with phosphorescent paints, and on exposing them to the light you will see that they are very pretty.” Reproductions are provided of an elaborate “stage setting” to the lecture, of various tubes with the word radium written beneath, but which, so far as the reader is concerned, might as well have contained sugar, and of some photographs taken with the aid of radium. The latter, although of more general interest, are sometimes misleading. Thus Fig. 7 is a radiograph of glass lenses, and is used to throw doubt on the generally accepted fact that the radium rays cannot be reflected, refracted, or polarised, whereas it is obvious that the photograph is taken with ordinary light, either the phosphorescent light of the radium itself not being eliminated, or else by simple “fogging.” With regard to the text, the part dealing with radium consists of the collection of a large number of facts collected together without discrimination or arrangement. Thus two pages are spent on Heydweiller's experiment on the loss of weight of radium, the opinions of various eminent authorities with regard to this experiment are quoted as obtained by the author, and at the end we learn that the observation in question has been admitted by the observer to have been the result of an accident. Snippets of information are provided from most of the important researches which would be quite unintelligible to those not intimately acquainted with the subject and superfluous to those who are.
Radium and other Radio-active Substances, with a Consideration of Phosphorescent and Fluorescent Substances. The Properties and Applications of Selenium and the Treatment of Disease by the Ultraviolet Light.
By William J. Hammer. Pp. viii + 72. (London: Sampson Low, Marston and Co., Ltd., 1903.) Price 5s. net.
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Radium and other Radio-active Substances, with a Consideration of Phosphorescent and Fluorescent Substances The Properties and Applications of Selenium and the Treatment of Disease by the Ultraviolet Light . Nature 68, 621 (1903). https://doi.org/10.1038/068621a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/068621a0