Radioactivity and the Structure of the Atom

L. Meitner. Radioactivity and the Structure of the Atom. Translated by V. A. Unkovskaya. Advances in Science and Technology. Scientific Chemical-Technical Publishing House. Petrograd, 1922. Pp. 17.

The present brochure is a translation of an article by the author, printed in Festschrift der Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften, Berlin, 1921, and in the journal Die Naturwissenschaften. The author sets forth, in a concise but quite elementary form, the modern theory of radioactive decay with all the consequences following from it, the Rutherford–Bohr theory of the structure of the atom, and, finally, the most interesting last pages of the brochure are devoted to an exposition of the author’s own ideas concerning the connection between the structure of the atomic nucleus and the character of radioactive transformations. These views of Lise Meitner, developed in detail in her work printed in Zeitschrift für Physik, are reviewed on p. 304 of our journal. One cannot deny Meitner’s scheme a considerable degree of expediency. Her theory has attracted the attention of German physicists, and Sommerfeld, in the new edition of his well-known book, devotes considerable space to this theory. (A. Sommerfeld, Atombau und Spektrallinien, 3rd ed., Braunschweig, 1922, p. 110 ff.)

E. Shpolsky.