The Times from San Mateo, California • Page 21

reading a paper on theoretical physics to a group of his colleagues at thL- Massachusetts I i of Technology, Cambiidge, Mass. A seven- thunderstorm came up Presently the chairman inter: uptv-d and apologized to Dr. Onpenhenner, M.vmt;. "We should take a brief recess i the storm abates so that you can be he-did." "Oh," replied Dr. Oppenheimer, "was anyone listening?" That describes the prewar place of theoietical physicists.

They the men nobody listened to. Scarcely even their own colleagues Even to most of the scientific world the of these men were closed- books and their comments were dream stuil Nevertheless when atomic fires and bombs were needed, these dreamers took many of the top jobs among practical men. They, and almost they alone, could foresee the shape of things to come, and how those things must be handled to avoid the risk of blasting the bomb project and much of its personnel into fragments so small that there would be no trace. The accident record of the entire bomb project is almost miraculous considering that some risks were previously entii ely unknown and in some respects the greatest that were ever faced. It should be noted that the theoretical physicists were by no means the only executives of the project to be credited with the safety record.

All through, in every area where the Army, the scientists and big industry worked, the precautions taken against accidents were about ten-fold those of the best ordinary safety practices. One reason foi this was that the atomic bomb project could not afford many serious accidents, because had. such occurred no power on earth would have been able to keep the secret. These men to whom nobody listened went safely in almost one single sttide into the mysteries of an energy greater than the sun is known to use In fact, when these men started on the bomo work, they already knew how the sun produces its energy, and that its method not work for their purposes. The sun uses the millions of degrees of temperature of its interior to change foui atoms of hydrogen into one new atom of helium Involved are six pieces cf alchemy, in which the sun staits with common carbon, changing it into nitrogen, then into oxygen, and back down the scale until it has its original caibon again, the new i atom This takes a long time, and nut of it all comes about thirty million electron volts of energy.

That is less than one-sixth of the energy which spurts from a single split of an atom of a i What these ners know, and what their xl- rtagues have veri.ied in a i a i expei inn 'Hs, is a comforting guarantee that there is no way or man to explode the earth nor any part of it. Thev can and have demonstrated that it is not possible for the air to burn with atomic energy the volume of air should be as gieat as the of the sun at a sustained i a i of a i i degrees or more. The total volume of air ing the earth would not make much more than one good tongue of flame of the i a is continually shooting out of all sides of the sun Although the temperatures created by the explosion of an atomic bomb are many millions of degrees, and aie about as high as those which have sometimes been credited to the i i of the sun. they are gone in a flash Thev are not sustained. It may be difficult to a i from the fear that these scientists have missed something when they say the air will not burn i atomic fires, but what they did with the atomic bomb is a good a a that their predictions about the safety of the earth correct.

The only place in the entire universe where there is any sign of atomic explosions of an earth- shattering scale is in the stars called Novae These are the so-called new stais which telescopes discover about once each yeai on the average Sometimes they appear where no star was seen before. At other times a small star flaies up to become very bright. Hundreds of yeais ago one of these new a was so bright for a short time that it could be seen in the daytime. So far as telescopes can obsei ve, all of these explosions occui- in stars They do not so far as the evidence occui in cold solid bodies like our earth and the other planets of the solar system. While it is possible that the earth may have been created partly as the result of some atomic explosion billions of a i ago, it is i ally certain a the explosion took place as a result of chemical reactions going on in millions of degrees of heat, and that bv cooling down the earth lost the energy by which it could i itself, or by which man could blow up the world But it can be confidently expected that stones and theories about blowing the world, or parts of it, will plague people for m-iny The theories' are not scientific.

They are guesses, and are The Arctic--Future Mediterranean Sea? The atomic bomb, plus the development of long- distance airplanes and rocket ships, may make the Arctic militarily the most strategic region in the world, just as was the Mediterranean Sea in not made by scientists well founded in atomic work One example is a proposal that the earth nevei lost its original heat, but that the high tempeiature retired into the supposedly molten interior. There it now awaits a deep enough crack in the crust, created by an atomic bomb, perhaps one exploded under water. Through this crack would issue the pent-up forces to blow the world apart. REMAINING MYSTERIES phrases "energy of creation" and "power of the sun," used to describe the tremendous force of atomic bombs, are in about the same class the fairies, genii, ghosts and Olvmpic gods that earliei men used to explain natural events they did not fully understand. Both explanations of the bomb mean that some of the forces of atomic energy are not yet understood.

These mysterious forces are apparently some kind of attraction that takes place between very small particles when they are very close together. This is the force that has been calculated as a million times greater than gravitation. This foice apparently does not apply in any large degree to objects as large as atoms. But it exists between the nauch smaller primary particles that form atoms, namely neutrons, protons, and electrons. The existence of this odd force in the sub-atomic world is apparently the key that scientists expect to use to obtain atomic energies from elements that are i i and less expensive than a i and i This plan will enable the investigators to bypass the difficult pioblem ot trying to split other atoms in the same way that i a i and i divide.

The theoretical physicists, the men who safely guided the atomic bomb development, a a have definite plans for tapping the still sub-atomic energies Cosmic rays have furnished the clues. These rays produce particles that arc i ncutions, protons, or single electrons. The particles are plainly visible in the vapor trails of cloud chambeis One of them has a mass equal to the weight of about two hundred electrons. It has been named meson and also heavy election. The a is popuW name which annoys the nuclear physicists, because it is an description.

Since the wai mesons have been made in the laboialory by a 100.000,000- volt X-ray machine. Another particle that has been seen is made of two electrons, one negative and the former times. This mop shows how the earth's major cities all are relatively close to the north pole--all subject to atomic raids over the top of the earth. The figures shown are distances by air. other positive This particular pair is probably the most amazing combination yet discovered This one shows up as a result of a gamma ray converting itself into solid matter A gamma ray is the same thing as arr X-ray and as i a i a as light, fhis pan 1 of particles appears to represent the creation of matter.

A a it is not credtion. but only evidence of a have long believed, that both matter and rays are merely two different phases of the same i that one is convertible into the other, vid a both are indestructible. Two other pieces of information about the subatomic particles have come to light, and have been emphasized by the atomic bomb woik. These are that both of the heavy particles, neutrons and protons, probably aie not units, but are assemblies of some sort. The theoretical phvsicists already have predicted a still other sub-atomic particles exist, and have outlined the methods by which they may be discovered.

Di A Wheeler of Princeton University has sketched the picture of this atomic energy trail He is one of the younger- theoretical physicists, whose ideas along i those of his former teacher. Professor Niels Bohr, the Danish scientist of Copenhagen, had much to do with initiating the atomic bomb project Whpelei likens the a i discovery to Columbus a i on the islands of the West Indies The uranium, piotactmium, thorium, and plutonmm atoms are only the outlying islands in the atomic age. He says the continent lies lyvond. But this continent surely will be found and explored, and its lesouices are vast a i i a He thinks a in the course of exploring this continent, man may find an explanation of an event a took place perhaps ten billion years ago. This event was the beginning of cieation in its present pattern.

Scientists do not predict how much farther the atomic energy discoveries may lead man into the mysteries of creation, and in fact few of them venture as fat as did Dr. Wheeler. But it is possible foi to go a The atomic predictions of today arc not far out of line with some man's age-long beliefs. As an e.x.unple, Genesis, 1-3, reads: "And God said, Let i be light; and there light." This sentence, if removed from the context, and considered by itai-lf, comes close to one of the damental discoveries of physicisU. It is only neccs-.