Abstract
IT would appear that radium has landed geologists and biologists in a difficulty greater than that from which it was hoped it would deliver them. There is radium in the earth, and radium in disintegrating gives out heat. Therefore a once molten globe will cool down more slowly than if it contained no such independent source of heat. Lord Kelvin's calculations were made on the supposition that there was no source of heat except what the earth possessed as a molten globe. Hence we are at liberty to extend the time that has elapsed since the earth became the possible theatre of geological change to 500,000,000, 1,000,000,000, or even more, years ago. Radium has given us a blank cheque on the bank of time.
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BULMAN, G. Radium And Earth History. Nature 90, 305 (1912). https://doi.org/10.1038/090305a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/090305a0
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