The small closed Dewar flask A contains the radium in a glass tube R, immersed in the liquid to be employed. The flask A is surrounded by another Dewar bulb B, containing the same liquid, so that no heat is communicated to A from the outside. The gas liberated in the tube A is collected in the usual way over water or mercury, and its volume determined. By this method, the rate of heat emission of the radium was found to be about the same in boiling carbon dioxide and oxygen, and also in liquid hydrogen. Especial interest attaches to the result obtained with liquid hydrogen, for at such a low temperature ordinary chemical activity is suspended. The fact that the heat emission of radium is unaltered over such a wide range of temperature indirectly shows that the rate of expulsion of α particles from radium is independent of temperature, for it will be shown later that the heating effect observed is due to the bombardment of the radium by the α particles.
The use of liquid hydrogen is very convenient for demonstrating the rate of heat emission from a small amount of radium. From 0·7 gram of radium bromide (which had been prepared only 10 days previously) 73 c.c. of gas were given off per minute.
In later experiments P. Curie (loc. cit.) found that the rate of emission of heat from a given quantity of radium depended upon the time which had elapsed since its preparation. The emission of heat was at first small, but after a month’s interval practically attained a maximum. If a radium compound is dissolved and placed in a sealed tube, the rate of heat emission rises to the same maximum as that of an equal quantity of radium in the solid state.
245. Connection of the heat emission with the radiations. The observation of Curie that the rate of heat emission depended upon the age of the radium preparation pointed to the conclusion that the phenomenon of heat emission of radium was connected with the radio-activity of that element. It had long been known that radium compounds increased in activity for about a month after their preparation, when they reached a steady state. It has been shown (section 215), that this increase of activity is due to the continuous production by the radium of the radio-active emanation, which is occluded in the radium compound and adds its radiation to that of the radium proper. It thus seemed probable that the heating effect was in some way connected with the presence of the emanation. Some experiments upon this point were made by Rutherford and Barnes5. In order to measure the small amounts of heat emitted, a form of differential air calorimeter shown in Fig. 98 was employed. Two equal glass flasks of about 500 c.c. were filled with dry air at atmospheric pressure. These flasks were connected through a glass U-tube filled with xylene, which served as a manometer to determine any variation of pressure of the air in the flasks. A small glass tube, closed at the lower end, was introduced into the middle of each of the flasks. When a continuous source of heat was introduced into the glass tube, the air surrounding it was heated and the pressure was increased. The difference of pressure, when a steady state was reached, was observed on the manometer by means of a microscope with a micrometer scale in the eye-piece. On placing the source of heat in the similar tube in the other flask, the difference in pressure was reversed. In order to keep the apparatus at a constant temperature, the two flasks were immersed in a water-bath, which was kept well stirred.