Great Accident

Some weeks ago Dr. Otto Hahn of Berlin's Kaiser Wilhelm Institute donned his work clothes, walked into his laboratory to perform a physical experiment. With a stream of neutrons (obtainable by subjecting a pinch of beryllium to the emanations of the radioactive gas radon) he bombarded a bit of uranium. While the routine little experiment proceeded all was peace and quiet in the laboratory. There was no crash of thunder, no flash of cataclysmic lightning.

But when Dr. Hahn examined his end-products and sat down with pencil and paper to figure out what had happened, he concluded that he had created the most violent atomic explosion ever effected by human agency. Moreover, he had not intended to do it. It was a great accident.

Dr. Hahn estimated the force of his explosion at 200,000,000 volts. There was no audible or visible violence, for the reason that the total quantity of energy released was not enough to knock a fly off the wall. It was a terrific explosion on a microcosmic scale. Enormous voltages impressed on sub-atomic particles will accelerate them to enormous speeds, but they are so infinitesimally small that the quantity of energy is negligible by ordinary standards.* But in the atomic world a force of 200,000,000 volts has hitherto been recorded only in cosmic ray showers, never in laboratory-created particles.

Though the discovery does not raise an immediate prospect of driving ocean liners for thousands of miles with the atomic energy locked in a cupful of water, it does help justify the statement of popularizing physicists that such things would be possible if atomic energy could be efficiently released.

Dr. Hahn bombarded his bit of uranium with neutrons in order to obtain ekarhenium, a heavy element similarly created some years ago by Italian Physicist Enrico Fermi. Hahn obtained ekarhenium, all right, and something else he did not expect, which he identified as atoms of barium and krypton. He applied the principles of quantum mechanics (atomic mathematics) to find out how much of a tempest in a test tube occurs when ekarhenium breaks up into barium and krypton. Answer: 200,000,000 volts.

Last week the Hahn report reached the U. S. and physicists sprang to their laboratories to see whether they could confirm it. Early this week the physics laboratories of Columbia and Johns Hopkins Universities, and of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, announced full confirmation.

Meanwhile, the Hahn report must have brought commingled pleasure and discomfiture to his colleague, crusty old Physicist Johannes Stark, who heads the Reich Physical-Technical Institute. Johannes Stark whoops up the Nazi idea that physical experiment is better than theory, regards theory as "Jewish" in spirit. Hahn's high-voltage explosion was produced by experiment, but accidentally; and it could never have been evaluated or even recognized without the help of theory.

*This can be understood from the analogy of electric current. The wattage, or power, is the product of volts and amperes. If the electromotive force or pressure is a million volts but the quantity of current is only one-millionth of an ampere, the power is just one watt, not enough to light a household lamp.

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