It does noticeably and forcibly
what probably all the other elements are doing with an imperceptible
slowness. It is like the single voice crying aloud that betrays the
silent breathing multitude in the darkness. Radium is an element that
is breaking up and flying to pieces. But perhaps all elements are doing
that at less perceptible rates. Uranium certainly is; thorium--the stuff
of this incandescent gas mantle--certainly is; actinium. I feel that we
are but beginning the list. And we know now that the atom, that once
we thought hard and impenetrable, and indivisible and final
and--lifeless--lifeless, is really a reservoir of immense energy. That
is the most wonderful thing about all this work. A little while ago
we thought of the atoms as we thought of bricks, as solid building
material, as substantial matter, as unit masses of lifeless stuff,
and behold! these bricks are boxes, treasure boxes, boxes full of the
intensest force. This little bottle contains about a pint of uranium
oxide; that is to say, about fourteen ounces of the element uranium. It
is worth about a pound. And in this bottle, ladies and gentlemen, in the
atoms in this bottle there slumbers at least as much energy as we could
get by burning a hundred and sixty tons of coal.
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