I42 CURRENT TOPICS. [J. F. I.

salts and ore. The condition was made worse by competition with
the very rich Congo ore. This was discovered in 1913, but the first
lot was received at Antwerp in December, 1921. During the year
1922 a standard price of $70 per milligram was maintained. Works
now operating in Belgium are said to have a capacity of 3 grams of
radium per month in a salt containing about 95 per cent. of radium
chloride. The copper deposits in northern Rhodesia are said to be
continuous with those of the lower Belgian Congo, and the uranium
ores may also be found in British territory. The pamphlet refers to
the exploitation of waters exhibiting radio-activity, and states that
whatever quality such waters may have at the springs, the bottled
samples lose this activity in a few days.
The famous Joachimsthal mines in Bohemia are now part of
Czechoslovakia, and the government of that nation is preparing to
operate the mines. The total production of radium in the Joachims-
thal region from 1911 to 1922, both inclusive, has been 22.3 grams.
H. L.

A Tentative Theory of Light Quanta. LOUIS DE BROGLIE.

(Phil. Mug., Feb., Ig24.)-The corpuscular theory of light held an
honored place in physics until well on into the nineteenth century,
such was the weight of Newton’s influence. Then there came upon
the scene the wave theory with its triumphant .explanations of dif-
fraction and interference and the corpuscular theory became a mark
for derision. In the last decade or two the quantum theory has been
directing thought once more to something not very different from
the discarded corpuscular theory. Energy is emitted and absorbed by
matter not continuously but in definite tiny chunks or quanta. This
conception, originating with Planck, has earned an assured position
in prevalent theory by its usefulness. Without it Bohr’s atom with
all its wonderful ability to unlock the mysteries of the spectrum
could not exist. “The photo-electric effect, which is the chief
mechanism of energy exchange between radiation and matter,” would
lack an adequate explanation and our knowledge of specific heats
would be much curtailed. The author proposes to himself one of the
most essential tasks of modern physics in these words : “ I shall in the
present paper assume the real existence of light quanta, and try to
see how it would be possible to reconcile with it the strong experi-
mental evidence on which was based the wave theory.” He assumes
that all light quanta are identical in all points save that of velocity,
“The light quanta would have velocities of slightly different values,
but such that they cannot be discriminated from c (the velocity of
light) by any experimental means. It then seems that ?$a0 (mass at
rest) should be at most of the order of IO-~O gr.” As a result of
the application of his conceptions to several phenomena of light, he
concludes : “ It is then possible to save both the undulatory and the
corpuscular characters of light, and, by means of hypotheses sug-
gested by the electromagnetic theory and the correspondence prin-
July> 1924.1 CURRENT TOPICS. I43

ciple, to give a plausible explanation of coherence and interference

fringes.” He recognizes that the reception of his ideas would bring
with it the necessity of framing a new electromagnetic theory that
should align itself with the conception of “all the real energy of the
fields being probably of a corpuscular fine-grained structure.”
G. F. S.

A Method of Drawing Metallic Filaments. G. F. TAYLOR.

(Phys. Rev., May, 1924.)-A century ago Wollaston made platinum
wire with a diameter of .oooo75 cm. by drawing down a silver wire
with a platinum core and by later dissolving the silver in acid. The
present method was developed to meet the needs of the Bureau of
Plant Industry for thermocouples and resistance thermometers of
very small sizes, and bears a certain resemblance to Wollaston’s
method. The metal to be drawn is enclosed in a tube of glass that
softens between the melting and boiling points of the m’etal and that
does not combine with the metal. A method of manipulation is given
bv which the metal is freed of oxide. A copper rod with a series
ot holes perpendicular to its length is heated at one end by a flame.
A glass rod with the contained metal is pushed into a hole with the
suitable temperature. From the distant end of the hole the tube is
drawn away with forceps, and, of course, the metal is drawn out with
the glass. The size of the resulting filament depends on the thickness
of the walls of the tube and on the rate of feeding in and of with-
drawal. These metals may be drawn in the manner described, Pb, Sh,
Bmiet,Si, Cd, Ga, Tl, Cu, Ag, Au, Fe, In, Al, and alloys of the same
. Special glasses are required with some metals as well as
certain tricks of manipulation. Aluminum was drawn in a tube made
of its own borate. In general hydrofluoric acid was used to dissolve
the glass sheath of the filament.
Wires thus prepared have bright metallic surfaces. When their
diameters are no more than .ooo~ cm. they can be seen owing to
irradiation. The size of much smaller wires can be calculated from
their electrical resistances, on the assumption that the specific resis-
tance has not been changed by drawing. One filament of antimony
had a resistance of 125,000 ohms per cm., and was calculated1 to have
a diameter of .oooo2 cm., No. 92 B. and S. gauge.
Such wires have been employed for resistance thermometers where
a high resistance in a short length is valuable. Use for hair lines
in eyepieces is also suggested. G. F. S.

Electrolytic Preparation of Metanilic Acid and Its Commercial

Posaibilitiea.-Paraminobenzenesulphonic acid has been long a
familiar synthetic under the more convenient name of sulphanilic
acid. Arthur K. Doolittle has studied a method of preparing the
meta-form by means of electrolysis. The meta-form has applications
in the manufacture of synthetic dyes, of which metanil yellow has
the widest application, Very large quantities of this dye are manu-