Abstract
WITH reference to Mr. Strutt's recent article and Prof. J. J. Thomson's letter on this subject, may I venture modestly to urge that it may be well to consider whether the condition set up in air to which attention is directed be not the outcome of the occurrence of a minute amount of chemical change of an ordinary character—whether it be not a sort of Russell effect on an infinitely minute scale, detected by an infinitely delicate test? That oxidative change is in continual progress, I imagine, is the belief of everyone who has paid the slightest attention to the subject; and that leaf surfaces—if not waterfalls—are the certain seat of such changes may be regarded as unquestionable. Those of us who require something more than an attitude of papal infallibility in proof of a scientific proposition would like to see the old love honourably retired before the new one is accepted in society.
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ARMSTRONG, H. The Assumed Radio-activity of Ordinary Materials . Nature 67, 414 (1903). https://doi.org/10.1038/067414b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/067414b0
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