England's Intelligentsia

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It is practically established that particles of positive and negative electricity are the fundamental units which build up our universe. Taking uranium, the element with the heaviest known atomic weight (92), as an example, he described the structure of a typical atom. At the center is a minute nucleus of positive electricity (a proton), surrounded by a swirling group of 92 electrons (negative), all in motion in definite circular and elliptical orbits. The electrons nearest the nucleus have an average speed of 93,000 miles a second—half the speed of light—while the outer ones have a slower rate. Different atomic groups may interpenetrate each other at the edges without their electrons becoming detached. If such an atom were imagined to be a mile in diameter, the nucleus would be the size of a pea, and the electrons would have the diameter of dining tables. The nucleus must thus have an inconceivable density to counterbalance the smallness of its mass. But an immense amount of work must still be done before anything like a complete picture of even the outer structure of the atom can be formed.

Sir Ernest disposed of the belief that an immense store of energy can be generated if man ever succeeds in breaking up the atom. For 20 years he and other physicists have been experimenting on this problem, trying to " bombard " or " excite " the atom so as to drive the electrons out of position. If it were possible to hasten the radioactive processes and compress the period of disintegration in such substances as uranium and thorium into a few days, instead of millions of years, energy might be released which would be of practical importance. But there is no evidence that this rate can be altered in the slightest by the most powerful laboratory agencies. There is no certainty today that the atoms of an element contain hidden stores of energy.

Dr. Vaughan Cornish, president of the geographical section, reviewed the strategical significance of the geographical position of the British Empire.

Sir William H. Bragg, Quain Professor of Physics of the University of London, and winner, with his son, of the Nobel Prize for physics in 1915, discussed the nature of the forces which hold together the molecules of a body of matter, the atoms within the molecules, and the electrons within the atoms, like a series of interlocking bolts.

Prof. C.E.R.S. Sherrington, in the economics section, compared the U. S. and British transportation acts.

Prof. A. J. Pape, Edinburgh anthropologist, proposed the hypothesis that a new human race type is evolving. Medical, mathematical and educational evidences suggest that cranial development is increasing, frontal and parietal bone growing heavier, hair and skin taking on finer texture. Psychologically, he said, sympathy, pity, intuition, and sensitiveness are characteristic of this type. The taste for meat and coarse foods is declining, without a corresponding growth of appetite for other foods. He failed to indicate in what nation or habitat this anti-Nietzschean superman is to be found.