1919, were far from impressed. Indeed, Professor Arthur Stewart Eve in his
Life of Rutherford
37 writes: ‘Sir William Ramsay made incursions into
radioactivity which were singularly unfortunate …’
Ramsay’s observations on transmutation—ultimately completely unsuccessful—were firstly expressed in his laboratory note book dated 06 March
1906.
29 A series of experiments on the effects of the action of radon
38 on
water and on solutions of salts of copper and other elements led him to
believe that he had actually achieved the transmutation of elements of relatively high atomic weight with the formation of elements of much lower
atomic weight belonging to the same Periodic Group. Typically, in a glass
apparatus, copper (a later Group Ib element) as aqueous copper(II) sulphate
or nitrate was thought to transmute to lithium (a later Group Ia element) in
much the same way as radon was thought to transmute to helium in
Group VIII. In coming to this conclusion Ramsay ignored the Periodic Law
of the elements as it was understood at the time, and instead followed the
Principle of J. W. Döbereiner, an empirical generalisation discovered in 1817
relating triads of elements with similar chemical properties to relationships
between their atomic weights.
Soon after the publication of Ramsay’s findings, a paper by Mme. Curie
39
appeared stating that when using a platinum apparatus, no lithium could be
found in the aqueous solution resulting from the treatment of a copper salt
with radon. Mme. Curie was so concerned that she communicated her results
directly to Ramsay advising him to repeat his experiment.
29 Ramsay however
remarked, ‘In spite of Mme. Curie’s advice, I am not going to repeat the
experiment on the Cu–Li transformation. All I can say is that we succeeded in
bringing about this transformation and she didn’t!’.
29
To be fair to Ramsay, the Periodic Table was far from understood. Six
years were to elapse before the principle of atomic numbers by Moseley, and
the existence of isotopes by Soddy brought order out of chaos and made it
possible to classify the elements on a sound scientific basis. On the other
hand, Ramsay had already realised that enormous energy—‘such as that
present in the hottest stars’—was involved in what we now recognise as
nuclear transformation, even speculating that the world may have at its disposal a ‘hitherto unsuspected source of energy’.
29 But such energy is simply
not available in chemical reactions and so it is difficult to see how he could
have believed he brought about nuclear transmutations at temperatures
available to aqueous solutions. The most probable explanation of Ramsay’s
experiments is provided by Ramsay’s biographer Morris Travers.
29 The glass
apparatus used by Ramsay had a stop cock sealed to it. Tap grease was kept in
an open wide-mouthed bottle standing on a bench in Ramsay’s private
30
D. Sheppard
Life of Rutherford
37 writes: ‘Sir William Ramsay made incursions into
radioactivity which were singularly unfortunate …’
Ramsay’s observations on transmutation—ultimately completely unsuccessful—were firstly expressed in his laboratory note book dated 06 March
1906.
29 A series of experiments on the effects of the action of radon
38 on
water and on solutions of salts of copper and other elements led him to
believe that he had actually achieved the transmutation of elements of relatively high atomic weight with the formation of elements of much lower
atomic weight belonging to the same Periodic Group. Typically, in a glass
apparatus, copper (a later Group Ib element) as aqueous copper(II) sulphate
or nitrate was thought to transmute to lithium (a later Group Ia element) in
much the same way as radon was thought to transmute to helium in
Group VIII. In coming to this conclusion Ramsay ignored the Periodic Law
of the elements as it was understood at the time, and instead followed the
Principle of J. W. Döbereiner, an empirical generalisation discovered in 1817
relating triads of elements with similar chemical properties to relationships
between their atomic weights.
Soon after the publication of Ramsay’s findings, a paper by Mme. Curie
39
appeared stating that when using a platinum apparatus, no lithium could be
found in the aqueous solution resulting from the treatment of a copper salt
with radon. Mme. Curie was so concerned that she communicated her results
directly to Ramsay advising him to repeat his experiment.
29 Ramsay however
remarked, ‘In spite of Mme. Curie’s advice, I am not going to repeat the
experiment on the Cu–Li transformation. All I can say is that we succeeded in
bringing about this transformation and she didn’t!’.
29
To be fair to Ramsay, the Periodic Table was far from understood. Six
years were to elapse before the principle of atomic numbers by Moseley, and
the existence of isotopes by Soddy brought order out of chaos and made it
possible to classify the elements on a sound scientific basis. On the other
hand, Ramsay had already realised that enormous energy—‘such as that
present in the hottest stars’—was involved in what we now recognise as
nuclear transformation, even speculating that the world may have at its disposal a ‘hitherto unsuspected source of energy’.
29 But such energy is simply
not available in chemical reactions and so it is difficult to see how he could
have believed he brought about nuclear transmutations at temperatures
available to aqueous solutions. The most probable explanation of Ramsay’s
experiments is provided by Ramsay’s biographer Morris Travers.
29 The glass
apparatus used by Ramsay had a stop cock sealed to it. Tap grease was kept in
an open wide-mouthed bottle standing on a bench in Ramsay’s private
30
D. Sheppard