HE most talked-about subject in the scientific world in recent weeks has, doubtless, been the case of Madame Curie. Possi

bly, also, there is no other current question that has stronger elements of genuine interest.

In saying this, I do not, of course, refer to the question as to whether or not the celebrated chemist has been indulging in an intrigue of scandalous dimensions with her colleague at the Sorbonne, Professor Langevin. That is a question of importance only to the three or four persons directly involved and to their immediate friends and associates.

French editors have made it matter for duels, to be sure, and its pros and cons have been cabled around the world. But all that does not raise it above the commonplace.

What does give the case of Madame Curie real interest is the fact that the scandal reveals a very close and intimate intellectual relationship between the only woman. in the world who has ever stood in the forefront of scientific discovery, and a man who is conceded to be one of the most brilliantly imaginative physicists of our time. Published extracts from their alleged correspondence contain passages that seem pretty clearly to suggest an intellectual dominance of the man over his woman colleague, such as scholars of the first rank are not supposed to accept. This, coupled with the somewhat problematical conditions that attended. the discovery of radium, brings the matter

within the province not merely of scientists, but of every one who is interested in the extraordinary feministic movement that is so marked a social phenomenon of our time.

It must be recalled that Madame Curie's position in the scientific world is not merely anomalous-it is unique. In the entire history of scientific progress, from the times of Pythagoras and Eratosthenes and Archimedes to the last decade of the nineteenth century, there had been not a single scientific discovery of great significance ascribed to a woman. So Madame Curie's position as co-discoverer of radium was not unnaturally regarded as having somewhat the significance of ushering in a new eraan era in which woman was destined to take her place side by side with man even in so abstruse and uninviting a field as that of pure science.

Doubtless, the general public, when they hear the word radium, think of this remarkable woman as its discoverer and scarcely recall that the discovery was made in the laboratory of one Pierre Curie and with the constant collaboration of that man of science. The importance of the discovery itself has been greatly exaggerated, and the name of Madame Curie has become a household word to thousands of people who never heard of Becquerel, the founder of the science of radioactivity, or of Professor Rutherford, its chief exponent.

This is natural enough, since great men of science are fairly numerous, whereas of

imagination of genius.

One of the most famous of European men

of science put the case to me in a
novel light not many months
ago, in the course of a con-
versation in which he pre-
dicted that Madame Curie's
work in future would be but
the work of an average plodder.
"Whatever element of in-
spiration there might have
been in Madame Curie's
earlier work," he said,

"was due to the

fact that when

she made her
important
researches
she was not
only work-
ing under
guidance
and inspi-
ration of a
profoundly
imagina-

tive man,
but that,
further-
more, she
was in love

with that man.

Thus, and thus only, in

my opinion, is a woman likely to do really creative work in science. But Pierre Curie is dead, and so Madame Curie's inspiration is gone forever."

But this critic forgot, quite obviously, to reckon with the fact that a woman who has loved and lost may find a new object of affection. Pierre Curie was dead; but there lived another man of genius of much the same imaginative type of mind, named Paul Langevin; a recognized authority in the study of the most abstruse phases of electricity and

As a matter of fact, Madame Curie made no startling discoveries for a number of years after her husband's death. The work of investigating the extraordinary properties of radium was taken up by a school of English investigators, most prominent of whom is Professor Rutherford of Manchester, who announced one striking discovery after another, while Madame Curie

occupied herself with the writing of a book about the new science. At last, however (in 1910), came the

announce

ment that Madame Curie, to the confusion of her critics, had done a new . piece of original research work. She

had isolated the metal radium. This brought her name

again prominently before the public. She became a candidate for election to the Academy of Sciencean honor never hitherto accorded to a woman. Her candidacy was unsuccessful, to be sure, but there were rumors that it would be renewed this year.

Then came the announcement

magnetism; a man gifted with precisely the sort of philosophical imagination that Madame Curie was supposed to lack. Granted close association with such a mind,

that Madame Curie was to receive the Nobel prize in chemistry, notwithstanding the fact that she had shared the Nobel prize in physics with her husband and Professor Becquerel in 1903. The action of the Swedish Academy in thus doubly honoring the only woman of science at all eligible for such dis

tinction seemed to serve as a telling answer to the critics who had questioned Madame Curie's genius; since now-so far as the general public knew-her work could not be impugned as shining in the light of any man's reflected glory.

It was a cruel chance that should have brought to light the Langevin association in this hour of triumph. But come to light it did, almost in the very moment when the Nobel prize was being delivered; and so the case of Madame Curie is reopened just when it seemed on the point of final settlement. The public learned, with something of surprise and more of delight, that unusual scientific workers may be susceptible to very usual emotions. And the question whether at the present stage of evolution a woman can develop the type of imagination that is essential to creative investigation in science remains sub judice.

Making Diamonds Out of Gas

IT

T is familiar knowledge that the carbon that is the chief constituent of coal and one of the two constituents of carbonic-acid gas is the substance that when purified and crystallized is known as the diamond. Nevertheless, it seems rather paradoxical to reflect that with each breath we exhale we are removing from the body a substance that might be transformed without chemical change into the hardest and most valuable of minerals.

A report has just come from Germany that a process of effecting this transformation has been discovered by Dr. Werner von Bolten, a chemical expert connected with the Siemens-Halske Laboratory in Berlin. The process is said to be based on the decomposition of ordinary illuminating gas by mercury amalgam, whereby the carbon in the gas is crystallized into diamonds. The report adds that the diamonds are extremely minute, but that their size may be increased by introducing small bits of diamond dust to serve as centers of crystallization. Even so, the process is still in the experimental stage, and the diamonds manufactured are not of commercial size.

While the method thus outlined would appear to be a new one, it must be recalled that the feat of manufacturing diamonds. was accomplished several years ago by the French physicist Moisson. His method was to subject carbon, in the form of sugar, to

the intense heat of an electric furnace, whereby the carbon was liquefied. Fragments of iron were melted with the carbon, and the liquid was kept at white heat (at a temperature of about 3,000 degrees Centigrade) for from three to six minutes.

The crucible containing the molten mass was then seized with a pair of iron tongs and plunged suddenly into a vessel filled with cold water. We may well understand Professor Moisson's assertion that he made this experiment for the first time witn some solicitude. It was, however, attended by no untoward results. But when the resulting mass of metal was dissolved in boiling hydrochloric acid, fragments of carbon remained. And when these fragments were variously treated with boiling acids, there remained finally small crystalline masses that responded to the tests for diamonds.

The principle involved, as explained by Professor Moisson, is dependent on the fact that iron has the unusual property (which, however, it shares with water) of expanding as it solidifies. Therefore, when the exterior of a molten mass of iron is cooled suddenly, as by plunging it into water, the subsequent solidification of the interior of the mass brings about a condition of terrific internal strain or pressure. Every one knows how water freezing in a pipe may burst the pipe. The solidifying iron exerts enormous pressure on the same principle. This pressure is brought to bear on droplets of molten carbon within the substance of the iron, and the carbon under these conditions solidifies not as ordinary graphite, but as diamond.

Professor Moisson had noted that iron is always found in the ash of natural diamonds, and that the same metal is present in considerable quantities in the characteristic blue clay of the natural diamond beds. It was this that gave him a clue to the method that he utilized with striking success in his laboratory experiments. These experiments, however, led to no commercial results. The diamonds manufactured had a high degree of scientific interest, but were not large enough to meet the requirements of the jeweler. It remains to be seen whether the new method of Dr. Werner von Bolten will have greater success in this regard.

But even if it should prove possible to transform illuminating gas into diamonds of

commercial size, it is improbable that the market for natural diamonds will greatly suffer thereby. The methods of the laboratory can seldom quite duplicate the methods of nature, and it may fairly be predicted that the artificial diamond will have some points of distinction from the natural; just as is the case with the artificial rubies that are now plentifully manufactured. In the case of the ruby, to be sure, it requires an expert to detect the man-made from the natural product; but the fact that a distinction can be made (chiefly from microscopic examination of the lines of cleavage) suffices to sustain the price of the natural gems.

Marconi's New Triumph

COM

OMMENDATORE MARCONI recently sent a wireless message from Coltano in Italy to Newfoundland, a distance of four thousand miles. The feat has peculiar significance, not merely because of the distance covered (in that regard it has been surpassed in a few instances), but because the ethereal vibrations that conveyed the message were sent in a desired

direction, instead of radiating into space

in every direction as is usually the case with wireless messages. A newly invented device now enables Marconi, so it is claimed, to concentrate the ether waves and direct them somewhat as a searchlight concentrates and directs ether waves of a different order which we interpret as light.

The importance of this new development will be obvious if we reflect a moment on the conditions to be met and overcome by a wireless message. Ether waves of any kind, whether of the character that produce light or radiant heat or the electro-magnetic pulsations used in wireless telegraphy, are ordinarily sent out in every direction from their point of origin. It requires but a casual observation of the conditions to see that the intensity of the vibrations must decrease inversely as the square of the distance.

That is to say, if a certain quantity of light falls on a given surface one foot away from a source of light, only one-fourth of that quantity will fall on a surface of the same size two feet away. Any one can roughly demonstrate this with a candle. Exactly the same thing would be true of pulsations used in transmitting wireless

messages.

It follows that, under ordinary conditions, the strength of the vibrations falls off at an appalling rate with increased distance from the source. It is a simple matter of multiplication to discover that a receiving station one mile away from an electric generator that is sending out messages in all directions will receive ten thousand times the quantity of ether waves that would be received by a station of similar dimensions one hundred miles distant. It follows that the most powerful current is presently frittered away and becomes useless, exactly as the rays of light from the most powerful source would become invisible at the distance of a few miles were they not concentrated and sent forth in a condensed beam by the mirror of the searchlight.

Hitherto, it has been found exceedingly difficult to concentrate the electro-magnetic rays used in wireless telegraphy. If Marconi has really solved this problem, we are a long step nearer the time when wireless telegraphy may altogether take the place of the old system.

Telephoning Through Water

ΑΝ

exact

Avict course of the ether waves that N interesting query arises as to the transmit the wireless message when long distances are involved. In telegraphing from Italy to Newfoundland, for example, the message is transmitted about one-sixth of the distance around the globe. As the earth's surface is curved, it is obvious that the direct line between the points of sending and receiving the message would pass at a considerable depth through the structure of the earth. If the electro-magnetic waves travel in straight lines only, as rays of light do unless refracted or reflected, it is clear that the wireless messages must actually penetrate the earth's structure. There is no reason why they should not do so, inasmuch as the luminiferous ether is supposed to be everywhere present as an all-pervading medium filling the spaces between molecules and atoms. But the best opinion is that the waves are diffracted or bent, and thus follow the curvature of the earth.

That wireless messages may be conveyed through the water has recently been demonstrated by an Englishman, Mr. Shorman, who developed an under-sea system of wireless telephony. His invention has been.