| Radiation | λ for aluminium | λ for air |
|---|---|---|
| Excited radiation | 830 | ·42 |
| Thorium | 1250 | ·69 |
| Radium | 1600 | ·90 |
| Uranium | 2750 | 1·6 |
Taking the density of air at 20° C. and 760 mms. as 0·00120 compared with water as unity, the following table shows the value of λ divided by density for the different radiations.
| Radiation | Aluminium | Air |
|---|---|---|
| Excited radiation | 320 | 350 |
| Thorium | 480 | 550 |
| Radium | 620 | 740 |
| Uranium | 1060 | 1300 |
Comparing aluminium and air, the absorption is thus roughly proportional to the density for all the radiations. The divergence, however, between the absorption-density numbers is large when two metals like tin and aluminium are compared. The value of λ for tin is not much greater than for aluminium, although the density is nearly three times as great.
If the absorption is proportional to the density, the absorption in a gas should vary directly as the pressure, and this is found to be the case. Some results on this subject have been given by the writer (loc. cit.) for uranium rays between pressures of ¼ and 1 atmosphere. Owens (loc. cit.) examined the absorption of the α radiation in air from thoria between the pressures of 0·5 to 3 atmospheres and found that the absorption varied directly as the pressure.
The variation of absorption with density for the projected positive particles is thus very similar to the law for the projected negative particles and for cathode rays. The absorption, in both cases, depends mainly on the density, but is not in all cases directly proportional to it. Since the absorption of the α rays in gases is probably mainly due to the exhaustion of the energy of the rays by the production of ions in the gas, it seems probable that the absorption in metals is due to a similar cause.
102. Relation between ionization and absorption in gases. It has been shown ([section 45]) that if the α rays are completely absorbed in a gas, the total ionization produced is about the same for all the gases examined. Since the rays are unequally absorbed in different gases, there should be a direct connection between the relative ionization and the relative absorption. This is seen to be the case if the results of Strutt ([section 45]) are compared with the relative absorption constants ([section 100]).
| Gas | Relative absorption | Relative ionization |
|---|---|---|
| Air | 1 | 1 |
| Hydrogen | ·27 | ·226 |
| Carbon dioxide | 1·43 | 1·53 |
Considering the difficulty of obtaining accurate determinations of the absorption, the relative ionization in a gas is seen to be directly proportional to the relative absorption within the limits of experimental error. This result shows that the energy absorbed in producing an ion is about the same in air, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide.
103. Mechanism of the absorption of α rays by matter. The experiments, already described, show that the ionization of the gas, due to the α rays from a large plane surface of radio-active matter, falls off in most cases approximately according to an exponential law, until most of the rays are absorbed, whereupon the ionization decreases at a much faster rate. In the case of polonium, the ionization falls off more rapidly than is to be expected on the simple exponential law.