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The Self-Spilling
Atom
The history of
the Rutherford-Soddy collaboration
Thaddeus Trenn
 Taylor and Francis Ltd 1977
ISBN 0-85066-109-9
175 pages. Hard Cover.
21 black/white photos, 16 figures embedded in the text.
Purchasing Details.
Out of Print
My Comments on This Book
Norman Feather states in his forword "the collaboration of Rutherford
and Soddy will for long remain the most interesting of
all collaborations. It has three aspects of uniqueness:
the extreme youth of the collaborators, the entire novelty of the field
in which they were working and of the concepts which they developed, and
the fact that over a period of thirty years or more a
fair share of the credit for their joint achievment was not universally
accorded to one of them."
I dont fully agree with the latter statement.
Soddy outlived Rutherford which is why this view came about. Soddy had
gone to Canada hoping to get a position at Toronto. On not doing so he
went to a temporary position at McGill, where he worked on the action of
light on chlorine gas. The first Rutherford-Soddy interaction was in
1901 when they were on opposite sides of a discussion held by the McGill
Physical Society. Rutherford pointed out there were objects smaller
than atoms, JJ Thomson's electron. Soddy defended the integrity of the
chemical atom. Rutherford was already on the way to transmutation,
having reported and studied the radioactive emanation of thorium, and
had reported on the different lifetimes of thorium and radium
emanations, and also that the radioactivity "induced" by each element
were different too. Rutherford had his research students, such as
Hannah Brooks, and his friend, the new professor of electrical
engineering working on the problem. Following the McGill Physical
Society discussion, Rutherford, who had been turned down by his friend
the new chemistry professor (an organic chemist) invited Soddy to join
him in working out the chemistry of the emanations.
Errors Noted.
None noted
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Contents
| Foreword |
Norman
Feather |
vii
|
| Preface |
|
ix
|
| Acknowledgements |
|
x1
|
| Chapter |
|
|
| 1 |
The
Collaboration Epitomized |
1
|
| 2 |
Background
to the Collaboration |
10
|
| 3 |
Emanation |
36
|
| 4 |
An
Explanation of Radioactivity |
49
|
| 5 |
Further
Problems |
72
|
| 6 |
Wider
Implications |
88
|
| 7 |
Theoretical
Difficulties |
107
|
| 8 |
Confirmation
and Reflections |
124
|
| 9 |
Significance
of the Self-Splitting Atom |
142
|
| Appendix
1 |
Dating
the Addendum of Rutherford and Soddy |
148
|
| Appendix
2 |
Thorium
and Uranium Decay |
152
|
| Appendix
3 |
Probability
and the Disintegration Theory |
156
|
| Bibliography |
Works
Cited by Short Title |
160
|
| Who's
Who for 1903 |
|
160
|
| Index of
Persons |
|
170
|
| Subject
Index |
|
173
|
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Reviews
Not known at this stage.
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