Abstract
IN an earlier communication [NATURE, Feb. 16, p. 241] it was stated that an examination had been made of the results of experiments on cosmic rays. The experiments referred to were those of Millikan and his colleagues. In a recent paper (Physical Review, October 1928), Millikan and Cameron divide the rays into four bands with absorption coefficients per metre of water, 0.30, 0.08, 0.04, and 0.02 respectively. There is very little, if any, evidence for the existence of the last band, and I find that their results are fitted just as well by the division of the rays into two bands only, with absorption coefficients 0.30 and 0.051 respectively, rays of type A and type B, say. The experiments of Millikan and Otis and others show that there is a third type of radiation present, type C, say. Rays of this type are of local origin and consist, in part at least, of β-rays with an energy of the order of 100,000,000 electron volts.
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GRAY, J. Cosmic Rays. Nature 123, 447 (1929). https://doi.org/10.1038/123447a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/123447a0
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