There was one subject on which he was particularly
eloquent--radioactivity; that most strange property of matter whose
discovery had been the crowning glory of science in the closing decade of
the nineteenth century. None of us really knew anything about it except
what Stonewall taught us. If some new incomprehensible announcement
appeared in the newspapers we skipped it, being sure that Edmund would
make it all clear at the club in the evening. He made us understand, in a
dim way, that some vast, tremendous secret lay behind it all. I recall
his saying, on one occasion, not long before the blow fell:
"Listen to this! Here's Professor Thomson declaring that a single grain
of radium contains in its padlocked atoms energy enough to lift a million
tons three hundred yards high. Professor Thomson is too modest in his
estimates, and he hasn't the ghost of an idea how to get at that energy.
Neither has Professor Rutherford, nor Lord Kelvin; _but somebody will get
at it, just the same_."
He positively thrilled us when he spoke thus, for there was a look in his
eyes which seemed to penetrate depths unfathomable to our intelligence.
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