Physicists at Jefferson Laboratory Conduct Experiments on Nature of Atom--Pile Driver Dents One Atom Slightly

Experiments at Jefferson Laboratory on the nature of the atom, the ultimate particle of matter, are now being conducted by several professors of the Physics Department, it was ascertained yesterday.

Professor William Duane '93. Research Fellow in Physics, a noted Roentgen ray expert, is at present attempting to determine the structure of the atom by means of X-ray spectra. A current of tremendous voliage is projected into a Roentgen tube arranged in such a way that the X-ray generated will be passed through a diamond prism. The resulting spectrum is caught on a photographic plate.

Sinces the X-ray is composed of a stream of atoms, the spectrum may be used to find the composition of the individual atom by the Fraunhofer method.

Professor J. C. Slater, Bayord Cutting Fellow for Research in Physics, is similarly occupied in a study of atomic structure. He stated to a CRIMSON representative. "To my knowledge, the greater part of research physicists throughout the country are working either directly or indirectly on something connceied with the atom."

Recent reports from Sloane laboratory at Yale reveal that over 20 scientists there are testing the strength of the atom injecting foreign particles into the atom and bending the atom out of shape. Since this invisible unit of matter is the basic substance of which everything is composed, the physicists are really engaged in a study of fundamentals. When the exact nature of the atom is finally ascertained, the results will be of the utmost importance in every field of science.

Professor P. W. Bridgeman '04. Rumford medalist, and a physicist famous for his research in high pressure, is at present working on the viscosity of mercury but stated, when asked whether he had subjected any atoms to hydraulic compression that he had limited his activities in this field to pressure of many tons upon single metal crystals: At Yale, a pressure physicist has succeeded in making a fat square atom into a long thin atom by means of a pile driver, but the significance of his experiment has not thrilled the scientific world.