Activity Induced Outside the Influence of Radio-active Substances.
Attempts were made to produce induced radio-activity outside the action of radio-active bodies.
M. Villard subjected to the action of the cathode rays a piece of bismuth placed as anticathode in a Crookes tube; the bismuth was thus rendered active to a very slight degree, for it required an exposure of eight days to obtain a photographic impression.
Mr. MacLennan has exposed different salts to the action of cathode rays, afterwards warming them slightly. The salts then acquired the property of neutralising bodies positively charged.
Studies of this kind are of great interest. If, by using known physical agents, it were possible to create a considerable radio-activity in bodies originally inactive, we might hope thence to discover the cause of the spontaneous radio-activity of certain substances.
Variations of Activity of Radio-active Bodies.
Effects of Solution.
The activity of polonium, as I have said above, diminishes with time. This diminution is slow, and does not take place at the same rate with different specimens. A sample of bismuth-polonium nitrate lost half its activity in eleven months, and 95 per cent in thirty-three months. Other specimens have evidenced similar diminution.
A specimen of metallic bismuth containing polonium was prepared from the nitrite, its activity after preparation being 100,000 times that of uranium. The metal is now only a body of medium radio-activity (2000 times that of uranium). Its radio-activity is determined at intervals. In six months it has lost 67 per cent of its activity.
The loss of activity does not seem to be facilitated by chemical action. In rapid chemical changes no considerable loss of activity has in general taken place.
In contrast to that which occurs with polonium, radium salts possess a permanent radio-activity which evidences no appreciable diminution after many years.
A freshly prepared radium salt in the solid state does not at first possess an activity of constant strength. Its activity increases from the time of preparation until it attains a practically constant limiting value after about one month. The opposite is the case for a solution. When freshly prepared the solution is very active, but when left exposed to the air it rapidly loses activity, and finally reaches a limiting
