DETHRONEMENT OF THE ATOM
IT is of course to be expected that the advance of scientific knowledge will destroy, here and there, a cherished illusion. It was so when Darwin showed us that we are not made of mud, but have “just growed.” At least that is what Darwin is by many held to have done, and deep is their resentment. In a general way it may be said that the path of scientific progress is strewn with the mouldering bones of our dearest creations.
To this melancholy company must now be added the precious Atom. It has had a fairly long reign, has the atom; the youths who first worshiped at its shrine are in the lean and slippered pantaloon stage of existence. It will be all the harder for them to see their idol depedestaled.
That the atom was the ultimate unit of matter, the absolute smallest thing in the universe, a fraction incapable of further division—that is what we had been commanded to believeby those in authority over the many things of science. And with such powers of conviction as we are gifted withal we had believed.
Now, what do we hear—what do we hear? Why, that an atom is an aggregation of electrons! These are so much smaller than atoms that the latter can be easily conceived as cut in halves—nay, chopped into hash. Before the inven—that is to say, the discovery—of the electron such a thing as that was unthinkable. So, at each enlargement of the field of knowledge the human mind receives new powers. The time may come when we shall be able (with an effort) to conceive the division of an electron.
The difference in magnitude, or rather minitude, between our old friend the atom and this new though doubtless excellent thing, the other thing, is characteristically expounded thus:
“If an electron is represented by a sphere an inch in diameter, an atom on the same scale is a mile and a half. Or, if an atom is represented by the size of a theater, an electron is represented on the same scale by a printer’s full stop.”
The electron, it seems, is not only unthinkably little; it is impalpable, invisible, inaudibleand probably insipid and inodorous. In brief, it is immaterial. It is not matter, though matter is composed of it. That is easy to understand if one has a scientific mind.
Not only are electrons immaterial, or at least inconceivably attenuated; they are immense distances apart—immense in comparison with their bulk. Likewise, they are inconceivably rapid in motion about a common center. The electrons forming a single atom are analogous to our solar system, but whether there is a big electron in the center science does not as yet tell us.
When a steam hammer descends upon a piece of steel it merely strikes the outside of an infinite aggregation of moving, impalpable things widely separated in space. But they stop the hammer.
Scientists know these facts, and we know that they know them—this is our delightful part in the matter. But we do not know how they know them—that is not granted to our humble degree of merit. As we grow in grace, we may perhaps hope to be told, preferably in words of one syllable, how they learned it all; how they count the electrons; how they measure them; with what kind of instrument they determine their actual andcomparative magnitudes, and so forth. No doubt the columns of the newspapers are open to them for explanation and exposition even now.
In the meantime let us be pleasant about it. It is more amiable to believe without comprehending than to comprehend without believing.