The effect of temperature upon radioactive disintegration
Within the last few years the influence of high temperature on the activity of radium emanation, of the active deposit, and of radium C has been examined in detail by several authors. The conclusions arrived at have been conflicting, some workers affirming a positive effect of temperature, others denying it. This lack of agreement is due, however, to a difference in the method of measurement of the active matter under investigation. Those workers who measured the activity by γ-rays are all agreed that temperature has no effect whatever, while those who measured by β-rays found always an effect of some kind, in many cases of considerable magnitude, and often, indeed, of a very surprising nature. While, however, the fact that there is a β-ray effect is admitted by all, there is still a lack of agreement between the results of the experiments of different workers, and even of different experiments of the same worker, which is hardly to be expected if the effects were due to a definite change in the properties of the disintegrating atoms at high temperatures. In view, therefore, of the uncertainty which has arisen on a point of such great theoretical importance, a systematic investigation was necessary to obtain definite results, whether positive or negative. This the author, at the request of prof. Rutherford, has carried out.