The Man Who Rocked the Earth

ll of the Smithsonian Institution, which probably had never before seen so motley a gathering. Each nation had sent three representatives, two profess

had sent Gasgabelaus, Leybach, and Wilhelm Lamszus; France-Sortell, Amand, and Buona Varilla; Great Britain-Sir William Crookes, Sir Francis Soddy, and Mr. H. G. Wells, celebrated

bservatories-seismic, meteorological, astronomical, and otherwise-throughout the world, had reduced its findings to print, and this matter, translated

speech in which he outlined briefly the purpose for which the committee had been summoned

and Italian, by goggle-eyed, bushy-whiskered, long-haired men who looked like anarchists or sociolo

n even their premises. In the tainted air of the council room, listening to these little pot-bellied Professoren from Amsterdam and Münich, doubt assailed him, doubt even that the earth had changed its orbit, doubt even of his own established formul? and tables. Weren't they all just talking through their hats? Wasn't

of Applied Physics at Harvard. Thornton had read his papers on induced radiation, thermic equilibrium, and had one of Bennie's famous Gem Home Cookers in his own little bachelor apartment. Hooker would know. And if he didn't he'd tell you so, without befogging the atmosphere with a lot of things he did know, but that would

latform, pounded perspiringly with his gavel and announced that the conference would adjourn until the following Monday morning. It was Friday afternoon, so he had sixty hours in which to conn

Way-the street given in the university catalogue as Bennie's habitat-alive. As he swung open the little wicket gate he

w, fly-blown card in the corne

urless material strangely resembling disintegrating worsted. The sun smote him in the back of his neck and drove him to seek the relief of the porch. Had he ever left Cambridge? Wasn't it a dream about his becoming an astronomer and working at the Naval Observatory? And all this stuff about the earth going on the loose? If he open

no sound; in fact the knob came off in his hand, followed by a foot or so of copper wire. He laughed, gazing at it blankl

o at all, Thornton turned the handle of the front door, assisting it coincidentally with a gentle kick from his right toe, and found himself in the narrow cabbage-scented hallway. The old, familiar, battered black-walnut hatrack of his student d

-ay! Benni

he saw the ridiculousness of it-he, the senior ast

ame in smothered

o, three steps at a time, and poun

voice of Bennie Hooker.

ooker wrathfully besought the intruder to depart before

!" came f

ody haltingly crossed the room, the key tur

d, scowling over h

said Thornton, ho

er. "Come in. I thought it w

h books and pamphlets and crowded with tables of instruments. Hooker, clad i

ou come from?" he inq

ing told him that this was the real thing-t

sort of way toward some broken-down

lamed an oxyacetylene blowpipe. He was a wizened little chap, with scrawny neck and protruding Adam's apple. His long hair gave no evidence of the use of the comb, and his hands were the hands of Esau. He had an alertness that sug

er than when you were an undergrad!" exclaime

ir is filled with the letters I have already answered; this chair with the let

the crate, laughing. It

rigible!" he sig

pipe. "Some one told me so-I forget who. You must have a lot of interes

ve all that you read in the papers.

take a crack at the fourth dimension-spacial curvature's my hobby. But I'm always work

ver saw a paper, how long since he had been out of the house

Germany,

y the R

r with politeness. "Oh, I th

match. They seemed to have extraordinarily little to sa

dropping in casually this way after all this time, but the fact is

id Bennie. "Wh

ornton, "the earth's nearly a

uncement with a polite in

do!" he remarked.

tell me," said Thornton s

legs and strolled

f wood and began whittling. "I suppose there's the devil to pay?" he sug

ago. Then there's t

ahara b

't you

I haven't any time to read the papers; I'm too busy. My thermic induc

ance was an added asset. He'd get his science pure, uncontaminated by disturb

way. "And you want to know what's done it? Don't blame you. I s

. "What I want to know is whether

t in the mass would do it. So would the mer

happened

seedless oranges until Burba

ssible by any human age

more or less of a rush what all the elements are doing at their leisure. A single ounce of uranium contains about the same amount of energy that could be produced by the combustion of ten tons of coal-but it won't let the energy go. Instead it holds on to it, and the energy leaks slowly, almost imperceptibly, away, like water from a big reservoir tapped only by a tiny pipe. 'Atomic energy' Rutherford calls it. Every element, every substance, has its ready to be touched off and put to use. The chap who can find

ically waved his

sted where the key could be found to unlock that treasure-house of energy. Some chap made up a novel once and pretended it was

friend's excitement, lea

ements isn't spontaneous, as Soddy and others had thought, but is due to the action of certain extremely penetrating rays given out by the sun. These particular rays are the result of the enormous temperature of the solar atmosphere, and their effect upon radioactive substances is analogous to that of the detonating cap upon dynamite. No one has been able to produce these rays in t

a series of experiments with that end in view. I got close-I am close, but the trouble has been to co

nd when you succeed?"

ace was tr

and his voice trembled. "But the damn thing either mel

ring discharge in the bulb, and the temperature of the vapour mixture rose until the bulb melted. He calculated that the temperature of that part of the vapour which carried the current was over 6,000°. You see, the ring discharge

ut that's an old principle, isn't it? Why does

became white hot, which he explained by some mysterious inductive action of the heat vibrations. I don't follow him at all. His theory's probably all wrong, but he delivered the goods. He gave

ked Thornton, whose che

o Thornton what appeared to be a small test tube of black glass. Thornton, with a slight moral hesitation, did as he was told, and Bennie, whistling, picked up the oxyacet

r wall of the tube-a flame which Thornton knew could melt its way through a block of steel-but the as

ause the disintegrating rays which the ring discharge gives out break down the zirconium, which isn't an end-product of radioactivity. T

sn't something like a sunspot. You know the spots are electron vortices with strong magnetic fields. I'l

thirst into you I'll show you an experiment that no living human being has ever seen before. I can't make very powerful disintegrating rays yet, but I can break down uranium, which is the easiest of all. Later on I'll be able to disintegrate anything, if I have luck-that i

ners, and adjusted a coil of wire opposite its centre,

hall get only a trace of the disintegrating rays before it blows up. But you'll see 'em,

ormer, and stepping to the wall closed a switch. An oscillatory spark discharge

plate!" sho

rnton w

f pale lavender light shot out from the capsule, and the metal plate

liant that for the next instant or two to Thornton's eyes the room seemed dark. Slowl

ak down and liberate helium; and the temperature rises in the capsule until it explodes, as you saw just now, with a flash of yellow helium light. The rays that get out strike the uranium plate and cause the surface layer of molecules to disintegrate, their products being dri

It's the old, 'momentum equals mass times

to the multipolar, high-frequency dynamo. But if we could control this force and handle it on a large scale we could

ashed to earth, for he would learn that another had stepped down to the pool of discovery before him. For how many years, he wondered, had Bennie toiled to produce his mysterious ray

enerate a ray such as you describe could

r if radioactive substances-pitchblende, for example-lay exposed upon the earth's surface he could cause them to discharge their helium and other products at such an enormous vel

of the Mountains of Atlas through the apparent instrumentality of a ray of lavender light. Hooker's face

the improvements in the apparatus part of the game come when there is a big commercial demand for a thing and the engineering chaps take hold of it. B

iting-table and poked amon

nything in the quantum theory--Oh! but you don't

. He enlarged upon Pax's benignant intentions and the great problems presented by the proposed interference of the United States Govern

ease! Who can it be? Curie? No; she's bottled in Paris. Posky, Langham, Varanelli-it can't be any one of those fellows. It beats me! Some Hindoo or Jap maybe, but never Hiroshito! Now we must get to him right away. So

freshman. "Hooray! Now I can take a holiday. And c

shington and was at the White Hous

President. "The honestest man i