2026-10-09 UCLA Contributions of 20th Century Women to Physics: Fanny Cook Gates

URLs: http://cwp.library.ucla.edu/articles/gates/gates1.html, http://cwp.library.ucla.edu/articles/gates/gates2.html (saved in research/pages/ucla-cwp-gates1.html, -gates2.html). Located via Google and Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Gates, secondary; used only to find the papers).

1. F. C. Gates, "Effect of Heat on Excited Radioactivity", Physical Review (Series 1) 16, 300 (1903); MacDonald Physics Building, McGill, January 1903 [web: gates1.html] - Starting point: "Professor Rutherford has found that a platinum wire excited by thorium emanations can be made red hot without appreciably changing its activity, but that the activity is almost entirely lost after heating the wire to incandescence." - Method: heat the wire inside a closed brass cylinder (about ten inches long) so nothing escapes; the walls became active, and the activity "was reduced to half value in eleven hours, the characteristic of excited radioactivity from thorium." - Conclusion: "intense heat does not destroy excited radioactivity"; the active particles "are transferred unchanged to the surfaces of the cooler solids near"; removal "is probably due to a volatilization of the active material." Same with radium-excited wires. - Acknowledgement: experiments performed under Rutherford's direction.
2. F. C. Gates, "On the Nature of Certain Radiations from the Sulphate of Quinine", Phys. Rev. 18, 135-145 (1904) (paper read to the APS, Columbia, 31 Oct 1903) [web: gates2.html] - Tested Le Bon's report that hydrating quinine sulphate makes air conducting. Findings (as summarized on the page and in Wikipedia): ionization only during temperature change; absorbed in 2-3 mm of air; stopped by thin aluminium; strongly dependent on field direction; concluded it comes from molecular (chemical/phosphorescence) action, not projection of charged particles from atoms. Bears on: claim 7 (heat and decay; the "destroyed at white heat" observation that Le Bon cites as unexplained); claim 2 and Le Bon's universal radioactivity (claim 7, ordinary matter); the Morray-TH active-deposit follow-up. Result: positive.