Abstract
MR. HOLMES, in his interesting letter in NATURE of June 19, brings out the embarrassments in which the superabundance of radio-activity in the accessible crust of the earth and the enormous antiquities deducible therefrom have plunged physics. His explanation is that since the earth as a whole cannot be as radioactive as the crust, without liquefying, there cannot be as much radium in it as might be inferred from the samples we can take, and that its “heavy metallic core” must be “completely destitute of radium”. This, however, involves the improbability that the heaviest metal of all, uranium, has not gravitated to the “metallic core”, and does not explain why this core should be destitute of radio-active substances.
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SCHILLER, F. Radio-Activity and the Age of the Earth . Nature 91, 424 (1913). https://doi.org/10.1038/091424b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/091424b0
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