Now in the case of the radium emanation, the rate of decay is about 5000
times slower than that of the thorium emanation, and consequently the
actual number of particles that must be present to produce the same
ionization per second in the two cases must be about 5000 times greater
in the case of radium than in the case of thorium. This conclusion
involves only the assumption that the same number of rays is produced by
a particle of emanation in each case, and that the expelled particles
produce in their passage through the gas the same number of ions. The
number of particles present, in order to be detected by the
electrometer, in this experiment, must therefore have been about 5000 ×
3500, _i.e._ about 2 × 10⁷. The difference of behaviour in the two cases
is well explained by the view that, _for equal electrical effects_, the
number of radium emanation particles must be far larger than the number
of thorium emanation particles. The probability of the particles coming
into each other’s sphere of influence will increase very rapidly as the
concentration of the particles increases, and, in the case of the radium
emanation, once the temperature of condensation is attained, all but a
small proportion of the total number of particles present will condense
in a very short time. In the case of the thorium emanation, however, the
temperature might be far below that of condensation, and yet a
considerable portion remain uncondensed for comparatively long
intervals. On this view the experimental results obtained might
reasonably be expected. A greater proportion of emanation condenses the
longer the time allowed for condensation under the same conditions. The
condensation occurs more rapidly in hydrogen than in oxygen, as the
diffusion is greater in the former gas. For the same reason the
condensation occurs faster the lower the pressure of the gas present.
Finally, when the emanation is carried by a steady stream of gas, a
smaller proportion condenses than in the other cases, because the
concentration of emanation particles per unit volume of gas is less
under these conditions.
It is possible that the condensation of the emanations may not occur in
the gas itself but at the surface of the containing vessel. Accurate
observations of the temperature of condensation have so far only been
made in a copper spiral, but condensation certainly occurs in tubes of
lead or glass at about the same temperature as in tubes of copper.
=169.= In experiments that were made by the static method with a very
large quantity of radium emanation, a slight amount of escape of the
condensed emanation was observed several degrees below the temperature
at which most of the emanation was released. This is to be expected,
since, under such conditions, the electrometer is able to detect a very
minute proportion of the whole quantity of the emanation condensed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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