8vo. With other plates and folding charts related to other articles. (Browning to title-page). Contemporary half burgundy morocco gilt (slightly rubbed). 

 

FIRST EDITION, THE FIRST MENTION OF ATOMIC ENERGY. Rutherford and Soddy write in defense of their 1902 paper on atomic transmutation, providing a seven-part study of radioactive change in which they demonstrate that radioactivity involves the spontaneous disintegration of atoms into an as yet unidentified matter. In the final section, “The Energy of Radioactive Change, and the Internal Energy of the Chemical Atom,” they assess their results and offer the realization that “all these considerations point to the conclusion that the energy latent in an atom must be enormous” (p.590). Rutherford was awarded the 1908 Nobel Prize in chemistry “for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances.” See PMM 411.