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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 76

Selective Molecular Escape

Selective Molecular Escape.

25. Immediately after the impact the temperature of different kinds of molecules will be very different from one another. Were the two colliding spheres composed of oxygen, they would be sixteen times as hot as if they were similar spheres of hydrogen. The temperature at impact will be proportional to the atomic weight. In a sphere of mixed elements these inequalities of temperature would quickly equalize themselves. When this was the case the hydrogen page 10 would be moving four times as fast as the oxygen. The velocities would vary inversely as the square root of the atomic weights. Whilst there escaping energy will be inversely as their atomic weight, that is hydrogen will have sixteen times the chance of escape that oxygen has.

26. This difference of velocity will tend to sort the molecules into layers like those of a lily bulb. The hydrogen on the outside will be followed by helium, lithium and other elements in the order of their atomic weights.

27. If there are elements lighter than hydrogen or if as Prof. J. J. Thomson suggests there be entities smaller than atoms, these will, of course, precede hydrogen. In my lectures and papers on this subject I have called this action "selective molecular escape."

28. Space will be thickly spread with free molecules of the lightest elements. This fact is important: it is one of the counteracting agencies that prevent the theory of the dissipation of energy being of cosmic application.

29. A telescopic view of a new planetary nebula produced by a partial impact, if seen through a prism, should give a series of discs of page 11 diameters diminishing with increase of atomic weight in its component elements.

30. This fact, taken in conjunction with the broadening of the lines into bands, will enable us to calculate the distance of such a body. It is possible, however, that the parallelism of the motion of the foremost molecules may prevent encounters; hence this layer of gas may not be luminous.