Abstract
ON p. 251 of this issue of NATURE, an account is given of recent investigations by Prof. O. Hahn, Prof. L. Meitner and F. Strassmann on the bombardment of uranium by neutrons. Prof. Meitner and Dr. O. R. Frisch have discussed the development and implications of these results hi a letter which also appears in this issue (p. 239). Experimental confirmation of these conclusions, it is claimed, is announced in the following cable, dated February 3, received from R. D. Fowler and R. W. Dodson, of the Chemical Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University. “We have bombarded uranium nitrate in a three millimetre ionization chamber with deuterium neutrons and found that particles causing a very intense ionization, at least five times that from natural uranium alpha particles, are produced. Fast neutrons from one milliampere two hundred and fifty kilovolt deuterons produced thirty-five particles per minute. Placing paraffin around ionization chamber increases this to seventy counts per minute. We believe this to be confirmation of work of Hahn and Strassmann (Naturwissenschaflen, Jan. 6; Frisch and Meitner NATURE [Feb. 11, p. 239—Editor]) in which activity ascribed to barium was found after neutron bombardment, and that these particles are barium ions of about one hundred million volts energy”.
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A New Type of Nuclear Reaction. Nature 143, 233 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/143233a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/143233a0