Abstract
ON September 17, the Morning Post published a Reuter message from Berlin to the effect that Profs. Paneth and Peters of that city had, after years of experimenting, succeeded in transforming hydrogen into helium “with the aid of particles of metal.” This announcement, if correct, is of great importance and will evoke even more interest than the claim by Miethe.and Stammreich to have transmuted mercury into gold. The two claims differ, however, in the important respect that whereas the experiments of .Miethe and Stammreich, and of Smits, indicated disintegration of heavy atoms into lighter ones, those now announced involve the synthesis of an element ofrom a lighter one, thus more nearly approaching the alchemist's 'dream of changing the relatively light base metals into the heavier gold and silver.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
News and Views. Nature 118, 455–459 (1926). https://doi.org/10.1038/118455b0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/118455b0