Some nuclear transformations of beryllium and boron and the masses of the light elements

Abstract

In a recent paper we showed that the nuclear transformations produced in lithium by bombarding the element with protons and with ions of heavy hydrogen were in complete accord with the laws of the conservation of mass-energy and of momentum. At the same time we pointed out that there were serious discrepancies between the mass-data and the transformation-data in some other cases, and we stressed the fact that the concordance for lithium was one between mass-differences, and gave no test of the correctness or otherwise of the absolute masses in terms of O 16 = 16·000. In the present communication we present the results of experiments on the transformation of beryllium and boron by protons and by ions of heavy hydrogen. It is shown that it is not possible to interpret these results on the mass-data at present available, and we indicate how the difficulties may be overcome by the assumption of a single small error in the mass-spectrographic value for the mass of He 4 . Beryllium So far as it is known beryllium consists of a single isotope,* the mass of which according to Bainbridge is 9·0155. This mass is greater than that of two α-partieles and a neutron (8·0043 + 1·0080§ = 9·0123) by nearly three million volts, and hence great difficulties have been en­countered in nuclear theory in accounting for the observed stability. It had been found by Rayleigh|| that the mineral beryl contained an abnormal quantity of helium, while the experiments of Curie-Joliot and of Chadwick¶ had shown that beryllium gave a copious emission of neutrons when bombarded by α-particles, but the most careful search has failed to give any evidence whatever for a spontaneous emission of particles from the element. Both lithium and boron, of atomic numbers 3 and 5 respectively, are very easily transformed by bombardment wit protons and with ions of heavy hydrogen, so that it was to be expected that beryllium, which lies between them in the periodic table, would also give effects when bombarded by the same ions. Observation of the energies evolved if the reactions are known with certainty, should then lead to values for the mass of Be 9 in terms of the masses of the other products of the transformations, which can be used to check the mass found by Bainbridge.