Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers by Arthur Brisbane
page 11 of 366 (03%)
You make it smaller. Then the particles did not touch. Do they
touch now? No; relatively they are farther apart than this
planet from its nearest neighbor.

That piece of iron, apparently solid, consists of clusters of
atoms wonderfully grouped, each cluster called a molecule. The
molecular cluster is invisible, millions of clusters in the
smallest visible fragment. The atom is accepted by science as
the final particle of matter. Its name indicates that it is
supposed to be indivisible. When science gets to the atom it
calmly gives up and says: "That is so small that it can no
longer be divided." A reasonable enough conclusion on the
surface, considering that you might have millions of atoms of
iron in one corner of your eye and not know it.

But why should the atom be incapable of further division? If it
is any size at all it can be thought of as split.

Where does the divisibility of matter end, if anywhere? What is
there SOLID about iron? Nothing in reality, except that it seems
to us solid. Already, with the X-ray, we can look through it.
Forces such as heat and electricity pass through it more readily
than through free air.

Science, which gradually finds things out, denying as it goes
along everything one step beyond, tells you truly that the
clusters of atoms in iron float in a sea of ether, just as do our
planets going round the sun. Heat the iron intensely. What
happens? You get what you call white heat. The white heat and
the white light come from the increase of wave motion in this
DigitalOcean Referral Badge