Radium, emanation heat from

We must now more fully consider the radium emanation — a substance with more astounding properties than even the radium compounds themselves. By distilling off the emanation from some radium bromide, and measuring the quantities of heat given off by the emanation and the radium salt respectively, Professors Rutherford and Barnes proved that nearly three-fourths of the total amount of heat given out by a radium salt comes from the minute quantity of emanation that it contains. The amount of energy liberated as heat during fre decay of the emanation is enormous one cubic centimetre liberates about four... 

It had been observed already that the radioactive minerals on heating give off Helium — a gaseous element, characterised by a particular yellow line in its spectium — and it seemed not unlikely that helium might be the ultimate decomposition product of the emanation. A research to settle this point was undertaken by Sir William Ramsay and Mr. Soddy, and a preliminary experiment having confirmed the above speculation, they carried out further very careful experiments. "The maximum amount of the emanation obtained from 50 milligrams of radium bromide was conveyed by means of oxygen into a U-tube cooled in liquid air, and the latter was then extracted by the pump." The spectrum... 

Radium is chemically similar to barium it displays a characteristic optical spectrum its salts exhibit phosphorescence in the dark, a continual evolution of heat taking place sufficient in amount to raise the temperature of 100 times its own weight of water 1°C every hour and many remarkable physical and physiological changes have been produced. Radium shows radioactivity a million times greater than an equal weight of uranium and. unlike polonium, suffers no measurable loss of radioactivity over a short period of time (its half life is 1620 years). From solutions of radium salts, there is separable a radioactive gas radium emanation, radon, which is a chemically ineit gas similai to xenon and disintegrates with a half life of 3.82 days, with the simultaneous formation of another radioactive element, Radium A (polonium-218). 

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