Abstract
LONDON Royal Society, January 23. H. CARMICHAEL: The nature of large cosmic-ray bursts. Cosmic-ray bursts have been investigated at sea-level with a large (175 litre) ionisation chamber. The results of 1,500 hours observation are given. A new sensitive quickly responding electrometer was used, and also a new method of recording, such that bursts of all sizes above the lower limit set by the normal fluctuations of the ionisation current were measurable. Experiments were made with different gases in the ionisation chamber and with several thicknesses of lead from 0 cm. to 8 cm. above the chamber. The result of the former experiments was used to complete the experimental evidence necessary to establish that the bursts are produced by thinly ionising particles such as are found in cosmic-ray showers in the Wilson chamber, and the result of the latter experiments shows that the large bursts of 160 to several thousand ionising rays are almost certainly complex examples of the shower-phenomenon. H. LONDON: An experimental examination of the electrostatic behaviour of supra-conductors. The question, whether in a supra-conductor the lines of electric induction terminate discontinuously in surface charges or whether they penetrate a thin layer of the supra-conductor, was undecided. It has now been decided experimentally in favour of the surface charges by the measurement of the capacity of a supra-conducting condenser. Accordingly E = 0 is valid in stationary conditions even in surface regions of the order of magnitude of 10˜7 cm. The measurements were carried out with a very low measuring voltage in order to exclude disturbances due to a possible electric threshold value.
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Societies and Academies. Nature 137, 200–201 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/137200a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/137200a0