Early days in radio-activity

✍ Scribed by E. Rutherford

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1924
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 502 KB
• Volume: 198
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0016-0032
• DOI: 10.1016/s0016-0032(24)90346-2

✦ Synopsis

\¥HEX your Secretary asked me to write a short paper to be read before The Franklin. Institute oll the occasion of the formal presentation of the Medal, in the award of which you have done me so great an honour, I thought it might be of interest to give some reminiscences of my investigations of radio-activity in its early days.

The dry records of the results of the investigations are to be found in the technical journals, but it may prove of more living interest to recall some of the events and ideas that guided me in my early researches. My connection with the then infant science of radio-activity began in a very natural way as the direct con.sequence of my investigation on the ionization of gases by X-rays. In 1896 I was a research student in the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, when Professor J. J. Thomson invited me to join him in an investigation of the temporary conductivity imparted to gases traversed by X-rays. As a result, we were able to explain the main features of the conductivity on the hypothesis that charged ions were produced in the volume of the gas by the radiation. After studying the recombination of the ions and their mobility in an electric field, it occurred to me that it would be of interest to examine the discharging action produced * Presented at the Stated Meeting held \Vednesday, May 2i, 1924.