The luminous watch dials
consist of a coating of zinc sulfide under continual bombardment by the
radium projectiles. Sir William Crookes invented this radium light
apparatus and called it a "spinthariscope," which is Greek for
"spark-seer."
Evidently if radium is so wasteful of its substance it cannot last
forever nor could it have forever existed. The elements then ate not
necessarily eternal and immutable, as used to be supposed. They have a
natural length of life; they are born and die and propagate, at least
some of them do. Radium, for instance, is the offspring of ionium,
which is the great-great-grandson of uranium, the heaviest of known
elements. Putting this chemical genealogy into biblical language we
might say: Uranium lived 5,000,000,000 years and begot Uranium X1, which
lived 24.6 days and begot Uranium X2, which lived 69 seconds and begot
Uranium 2, which lived 2,000,000 years and begot Ionium, which lived
200,000 years and begot Radium, which lived 1850 years and begot Niton,
which lived 3.
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