Abstract
IN order to ascertain if the rates of disintegration of radium and its successive products (the emanation, A, B, and C) are affected by high pressure, we have placed about 1 gram of barium chloride, containing 1.04 mg. of radium, completely sealed beneath lead, in a thick-walled cylinder of nickel steel, and compressed the radium by a tight-fitting chromium tungsten steel piston 1 cm. in diameter. The greatest pressure applied has been 3.2 X 105 lb. to the square inch, which is the estimated pressure at a depth of fifty miles beneath the surface of the earth. The penetrating radiation arising from radium C was observed by two large electroscopes placed on either side of the radium, and at a distance of about 30 cm. from it. The y rays produced a deflection of about twenty-eight divisions a minute in an electroscope, the natural leak of which was 0.4. The pressure on the radium was gradually increased from zero to that at ten, twenty, thirty, forty miles beneath the earth's surface, and was maintained for four days at about the forty-mile value. The pressure was then taken off, and observations were continued for three days more. During all these variations of pressure, no change was detected in the y radiation, although a variation of 1 per cent, could have been observed without difficulty.
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EVE, A., ADAMS, F. Effect of Pressure on the Radiation from Radium. Nature 76, 269 (1907). https://doi.org/10.1038/076269c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/076269c0
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