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present. Since they had very carefully arranged to remove all moisture,
they were led to the inescapable conclusion that there was a tiny,
yet constant, presence of radioactivity here on Earth. Such a supposition
was not so silly, as it was known that uranium ore was radioactive
and it came from the Earth. So, perhaps trace amounts of radioactive
elements were everywhere. Experiments were done to shield the
equipment from the Earths latent radioactivity. While shielding from
alpha and beta radiation and x-rays was straightforward, gamma radiation,
with its much more penetrating nature, was more difficult to
accomplish. It became clear that if one could not easily shield the electroscopes
from the Earths gamma rays, the next best thing to do
would be to move the equipment away from the source of the
radioactivity. Of course, the only way to do this was to go straight up.
t h e p a t h t o k n o w l e d g e 81
In 1910, a Jesuit priest named Theodor Wulf took an electroscope
to the top of the highest man-made structure at the time, the Eiffel
Tower. He was surprised to find that he measured more ambient radiation
at the top of the tower than at the bottom. He checked that the
tower itself was not radioactive and thus he was confused. The result
was not at all as expected. Perhaps there was a type of radiation from
the Earth that could penetrate the 300 meters of air separating Wulfs
electroscope from the ground? Of course, what was needed was
another experiment with even greater separation. Since the Eiffel
Tower was the tallest man-made structure, another approach was
called for.
In 1782, the Montgolfier brothers did something never before
accomplished. They made the first balloon flight. Here was a way to
lift an electroscope to a great altitude. Following Wulfs observation,
several scientists attempted to repeat his experiment in a balloon, but
the vagaries of the pressure and temperature variation with height
proved to be challenging. The early measurements were not precise
or reproducible enough for anyone to make firm conclusions.
In 1911, Austrian physicist Francis Hess entered the fray. He took
a balloon to 1,100 meters and observed no decrease in radiation. In
April of 1912, Hess made several different trips, rising to a height of
5,350 meters. He found the most amazing thing. Above 2,000 meters,
he found that the amount of radiation increased rather than decreased.
It was as if the source of radiation came not from the Earth but rather
from the sky. An obvious source of energy in the sky was the Sun, but
subsequent flights at night and during a full solar eclipse on April 12,
1912 showed no decrease in radiation. As Hess wrote later,
The discoveries revealed by the observations here given are best
explained by assuming that radiation of great penetrating power
enters our atmosphere from the outside and engenders ionization
even in counters lying deep in the atmosphereSince I found no
diminution of this radiation for balloon flights during an eclipse or
at night time, we can hardly consider the Sun as its source.
Abraham
Lincoln
Won the American Civil War