Gustave Le BON
Translated by F. Legge
Contents
Translator’s Preface
Introduction
Book I
The New Ideas On Matter
Book II
Intra-Atomic Energy And The Forces Derived
Therefrom
Book III
The World Of The Imponderable
Book V
The Intermediate World Between Matter And Ether
Book VI
The World of Ponderability: Birth, Evolution, and End
of Matter
Second Part
Experimental Researches
Preliminary Notes
Chapter I ~ General Methods of Verifying
Dissociation
Chapter II ~ Methods of Verifying Dissociation by
Light
Chapter III ~ Dissociation by Various Parts of
Spectrum
Chapter IV ~ Possibility of Rendering Ordinary
Matter Radioactive
Chapter V ~ Negative Leak Caused by Light
Chapter VI ~ Dissociation by Combustion
Chapter VII ~ Dissociation by Chemical Reactions
Chapter VIII ~ Dissociation of Very Radioactive
Bodies [ Missing Pages 381 +>]
Chapter IX ~ Ionization of Gases
Chapter X ~ Emanation of All Substances
Chapter XI ~ Absence of Radioactivity in Finely-
Divided Bodies
Chapter XII ~ Variability of Chemical Species
Chapter XIII ~ Passage Through Matter of
Dissociated Particles
Chapter XIV ~ Historical Documents
Papers by the Author Published in the Revue
Scientifique
Index of Authors [Not included here]
Index of Subjects [Not included here]
List of Illustrations [Not included here]
Translator’s Preface
Introduction ~
Book I
Chapter I
(5) Force and matter are two different forms of one and the
same thing. Matter represents a stable form of intra-atomic
energy; heat, light, electricity, etc., represent instable
forms of it.
Chapter II
The public troubles itself very little with the way in which
inventions are made, but psychologists will certainly be
interested by certain sides of the following account. In fact,
they will find therein valuable documents on the birth of
beliefs, on the part played, even in laboratories, by
suggestions and illusions, and finally on the preponderant
influence of prestige considered as a principal element of
demonstration.
My researches preceded, in their beginning, all those
carried out on the same lines. It was, in fact, in 1896 that I
caused to be published in the Comptes Rendu de
l’Academie des Science, solely for the purpose of
establishing priority, a short notice summing up the
researches I had been making for two years, whence it
resulted that light falling on bodies produced radiations
capable of passing through material substances. Unable to
identify these radiations with anything known, I pointed out
in the same note that they must probably constitute some
unknown force --- an assertion to which I have often
returned. To give it a name I called this radiation black
light.
Book II
Chapter I
If this new force --- the most widespread and the mightiest
of all those of nature --- has remained entirely unknown till
now, it is because, in the first place, we lacked the
reagents necessary for the proof of its existence, and then,
because the atomic edifice erected at the beginning of the
ages is so stable, so solidly united, that its dissociation ---
at all events by our present means --- remains extremely
slight. Were it otherwise the world would have vanished
long ago.
[Page 40 missing]
Chapter II
The fact is that the scientific ideas which rule the minds of
scholars at various epochs have all the solidarity of
religious dogmas. Very slow to be established, they are
very slow likewise to disappear. New scientific truths have,
assuredly, experience and reason as a basis, but they are
only propagated by prestige --- that is, when they are
enunciated by scholars whose official position gives them
prestige in the eyes of the scientific public. Now, it is this
very category of scholars which not only does not
enunciate them, but employs its authority to combat them.
Truths of such capital importance as Ohm’s law, which
governs the whole of electricity, and the law of the
conservation of energy which governs all physics, were
received, on their first appearance, with indifference or
contempt, and remained without effect until the day when
they were enunciated anew by scholars endowed with
influence.
Many years have passed away since that time, but the
degree of receptivity of minds for new things has not
sensibly increased.
Chapter III
Book III
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Book IV
Chapter I
The ether and matter form the two extreme limits of the
series of things. Between these limits, far as they are from
each other, there exist intermediate elements, of which the
existence is now revealed by observation. None of the
experiments I shall set forth, however, will show us the
transformation of ether into material substances. It would
require the disposal of colossal energy to effect such a
condensation. But the converse transformation of matter
into the ether, or into substances akin to the ether is, on
the contrary, realizable, and can be realized by the
dissociation of matter. It is in the discovery first of the
cathode rays and then of the x-rays that are found the
germs of our present theory of the dissociation of matter.
This dissociation, whether spontaneous or induced, always
reveals itself by the emission into space of effluves
identical with the cathode and the x-rays. The assimilation
of these two orders of phenomena, which for several years
I was alone in maintaining, is today universally admitted.
At the time when only the cathode rays were known, the
explanation by Crookes of their nature seemed to be quite
different. On the discovery of the x-rays and of the
emissions of the spontaneously radioactive bodies, such as
uranium, the insufficiency of the old theory was made
clear. One of the manifestations of the x-rays and of the
radioactive emissions which made the greatest impression
on the physicists and was the origin of the current
explanations, was the production of electricity on all bodies
both solid and gaseous struck by the new radiations. The x-
rays and the emissions from radioactive bodies possess, in
fact, the common characteristic of producing something
which renders the air and other gases conductors of
electricity. With these gases thus made conducting we can,
by passing them between the plates of a condenser,
neutralize electric charges. It was, as a consequence,
admitted that they were electrified.
Chapter II
Their apparent mass --- that is to say, their inertia --- is, as
we shall see in another chapter, a function of their speed.
It becomes very great, and even infinite, when this speed
approaches that of light. Their real mass, if they have one
in repose, would therefore be only a fraction of the mass
they possess when in motion.
Chapter III
Together with the alpha and beta rays, the first charged
with positive, and the second with negative electricity,
radioactive bodies emit an extremely slight proportion (less
than 1%) of gamma rays, entirely analogous, as to their
properties, to the x-rays, but possessing a higher power of
penetration, since they can traverse several centimeters of
steel. This property enables them to be easily distinguished
from the alpha and beta rays, which are stopped by a lead
plate a few millimeters thick. Their nature is otherwise but
little known, and if they are said to be analogous to the x
rays, it is solely because they are not deviated by a
magnetic field and possess great penetrating power.
From all that has been set forth above one general
consideration emerges, and this confirms what has been
said at the commencement of this chapter --- namely, that
the stages of the dissociation of matter must be extremely
numerous and that but few of them are yet known to us.
Without being able to isolate them, we are at least certain
that they exist. Since the unequal deviation of the beta
particles by a magnet proves clearly that these are
composed of different elements. We equally know that, in
the semi-material product designated under the general
name of emanation, already four or five very different
stages of the dissociation of matter may be noted.
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Artificial Equilibria of the Elements Arising from the
Dissociation of Matter
Chapter VI
Chapter I
We are here very close to the speed of light, and the mass
has as yet only increased sixfold; but it is now that the
figures deduced from the equation begin to increase
singularly. For the mass of the electric atom to become 20
times greater (20,49), its speed will only have to differ
from that of light by the fraction of a millimeter. For its
mass to become 100 times greater, its velocity would have
to differ from that of light by the fraction of a millimeter
comprising 58 figures. Finally, if the speed of the electric
atom became exactly equal to that of light, its mass would
be theoretically infinite.
Chapter II
If the terminal rods forming the poles are very wide apart,
there will be seen at their extremities sheaves of tiny
sparks named aigrettes (Figures 21 and 22) which are
disengaged with a characteristic crackling noise. In the
production of these elements dwells the fundamental
phenomenon. It is by examining their composition that one
notes the analogies which exist between the products of
radioactive bodies and Crookes’ tubes, and those of an
electrical machine.
The ions which issue from the poles of a static machine are
not, as a rule, very penetrating --- no more so, in fact, than
the ions which form 99% of the emission of radium.
However, I have been able to obtain very clear
photographic impressions through a sheet of black paper
by raising the electric tension sufficiently (Figure 27)
Chapter III
I have shown that the electric particles and the fluid they
form by their conjunction possess an inertia of a special
nature differing from that of matter, which, joined to other
properties, allows us to consider electricity in all its forms
as composing an intermediate world between matter and
the ether.
Chapter IV
Book VI
This was a gigantic step, and it is far from being one which
all physicists have yet taken. A great uncertainty still
dominates their ideas and their language. For the majority
of them the material support remains necessary, and
electric particles (electrons) are mingled with or
superposed upon material atoms. These electrons, still
according to them, circulate through conducting bodies,
such as metals, with a velocity of the same order as that of
light, by some mechanism totally unknown.
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Every one knows that the specific heat of bodies --- the
quantity of heat, expressed in calories, which has to be
communicated to them in order to raise their temperature
the same number of degrees --- varies with different
bodies. It is thus that, with the amount of heat necessary
to raise a kilogram of water by 3°, the temperature of a
kilogram of mercury can be raised by 97°. But if, instead of
comparing equal weights of the different substances,
weights proportional to their atomic weight are compared,
it is noted that all bodies experience the same amount of
heating from the same amount of heat, while electrolysis
also proves that they carry an electric charge identical for
the same atomic weight. To these facts, long known, are
added those resulting from the recent researches here
described, which show that, by the dissociation of matter,
the like products are obtained from the most different
bodies. It may therefore be admitted as extremely likely
that all bodies are formed of one and the same element.
The figures given in the books would then be, in the above
case, wrong by nearly 50%. The same author then asks
himself whether it might not be the same with iron, of
which so many allotropic forms occur. The observation is
probably applicable, not only to iron, but to all other
bodies. What therefore is there left of all the figures which
thermo-chemistry formerly displayed as so infallible?
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
(3) Conclusions ~
Second Part
Experimental Researches
Chapter I
General Methods of Observation for Verifying the
Dissociation of Matter
Chapter II
Methods of Observation Employed to Study the
Dissociation of Bodies by Light
The sources of light employed were: (1) the sun for the
radiations of which the spectrum extends to 0.295 microns;
(2) for the radiations extending further into the ultraviolet,
I took as a source of light the sparks of a condenser
discharging between aluminum rods placed in a box closed
by a plate of quartz covered with metal gauze, itself
framed in a sheet of metal connected with the earth so as
to be shut off from all electric influence (Figure 40).
Chapter III
Influence of Cleaning ~
Chapter IV
By arranging the strip of tin so that the sun may strike its
surface, it will be noticed that the gold leaves draw
together in a few seconds. With a diffused light, the
discharge still takes place, but more slowly.
Chapter V
(1) That this leak can only take place under the influence
of the ultraviolet;
(2) That it is the same for all metals;
(3) That the discharge only takes pace when the charge of
the metal is negative and not positive.
Method of Observation ~
Aluminum = 1000
Amalgamated tin = 680
Zinc = 610
Red Copper = 390
Cadmium = 340
Cobalt = 270
Tin = 270
Nickel =240
Lead = 210
Silver = 200
Steel (polished) = 80
Chapter VI
22 February 1896
7 March 1896
16 May 1896
20 March 1897
1 May 1897
29 May 1897
28 January 1899
11 February 1899
29 April 1899
14 April 1900
5 May 1900
1 / 15 September 1900
22 December 1900
8 / 15 / 22 November 1902
17 / 24 / 31 October 1903
15 October 1904
12 / 19 November 1904
10 / 17 December 1904
9 June 1906