Transmutation of Thorium by Neutrons

Abstract

IN a previous letter we have proposed schemes for the disintegration of radioactive noble gases, formed by the bombardment of uranium with slow neutrons¹. We repeated these experiments, passing the active gases over absorbent carbon instead of through water, which resulted in appreciably higher activities. We were able to confirm our earlier measurements and found 33 minutes as a more accurate value for the longer cæsium-period (instead of 30 minutes). It may be remarked that there is a satisfactory agreement between our results and those obtained by Hahn and Strassmann².