Quite recently, Professor Rutherford has demonstrated in a
fine series of experiments that the alpha particles of radium cease to
ionize gases when they are made to lose their velocity, but that they
do not on that account cease to exist. It may follow that many bodies
emit similar particles without being easily perceived to do so; since
the electric action, by which this phenomenon of radioactivity is
generally manifested, would, in this case, be but very weak.
If we thus believe radioactivity to be an absolutely general
phenomenon, we find ourselves face to face with a new problem. The
transformation of radioactive bodies can no longer be assimilated to
allotropic transformations, since thus no final form could ever be
attained, and the disaggregation would continue indefinitely up to the
complete dislocation of the atom.[44] The phenomenon might, it is
true, have a duration of perhaps thousands of millions of centuries,
but this duration is but a minute in the infinity of time, and matters
little. Our habits of mind, if we adopt such a conception, will be
none the less very deeply disturbed.
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