RankingsPrimerArbiterPhysicistMathematicianContrarianQESites logClaimsSourcesResearch notes

2026-10-08 - Internet Archive (archive.org)

What was searched

  • Advanced search API (script): creator:(Soddy) (109 hits; list saved in pages/ia-creator-soddy.json).
  • Advanced search: (Soddy) AND (Howorth OR Merricks OR Trenn OR "world made new" OR "pioneer research" OR "atomic transmutation") (1 hit).
  • Full texts fetched (djvu OCR, to pages/): Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt (id soddy-f.-wealth-virtual-wealth-and-debt-1925); Cartesian Economics 1922 (cartesianeconomi00sodd); The Interpretation of Radium, 1st ed. 1909 (interpretationof00soddrich); Nature 1906 letter "The Recent Controversy on Radium" (paper-doi-10_1038_074516c0; PDF saved to files/nature-1906-074516c0-soddy-recent-controversy-on-radium.pdf).

Found: Soddy's own works on archive.org (not in the project folder) [web]

Science: Radio-activity: an elementary treatise from the standpoint of the disintegration theory (1904; radioactivityele00soddrich); Die Entwickelung der Materie enthüllt durch die Radioaktivität (Wilde Lecture, Manchester, 23 Feb 1904; dieentwickelungd00sodd); The Interpretation of Radium, 1st ed. 1909 (interpretationof00soddrich, b28137577) and 1912 ed. (interpretationrad00soddrich); The Chemistry of the Radio-elements (1911; Part II 1914; chemistryofradio00sodduoft); Science and Life: Aberdeen Addresses (1920; sciencelifeaberd00sodduoft); The Interpretation of the Atom (1932; interpretationof0000fred); Phil. Trans./Proc. Roy. Soc. papers incl. "Experiments in Radioactivity, and the Production of Helium from Radium" (Ramsay and Soddy 1903; philtrans07115693), "Further Experiments on the Production of Helium from Radium" (1904), "The Parent of Actinium" (1918), "Discussion on Isotopes" (1921); Nature items incl. "The Ratio between Uranium and Radium in Minerals" (1910), "The Radio-Elements and the Periodic Law" (1913), "Intra-atomic Charge" (1913), "The Stability of Lead Isotopes from Thorium" (1917), "Name for the Positive Nucleus" (1920), "The Separation of the Isotopes of Chlorine" (1920), "The Atomic Volume of Isotopes" (1921), "The Recent Controversy on Radium" (1906), "The Profits of Research" (1918); Science Progress "The Complexity of the Chemical Elements" I-II (1917, jstor-22557/22498). Economics: Cartesian Economics (1922); Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt (1926; IA id dated 1925); Money versus Man (1931); The Role of Money (1934); The Gold "Standard" Snare (1935). Secondary: T. J. Trenn, The Self-Splitting Atom: the history of the Rutherford-Soddy collaboration (1977; selfsplittingato0000tren; lending copy).

Quotes and passages [web, IA full texts]

  1. Interpretation of Radium, 1st ed. 1909 (interpretationof00soddrich): "Exact experiments have proved that half a grain of radium gives out about three calories per hour. The amount of heat evolved by any quantity of radium every hour is just about as much as is required to raise a quantity of water equal in weight to the radium from the freezing-point to the boiling-point." Later in the same book: "The heat given out by a gram of radium, as we have seen, is 100 calories per hour", of which 25 from radium freed of emanation and 75 from the emanation.
  2. Same book, contents of Chapter XI (p.223 ff.): "Transmutation is the key to the internal energy of matter ... Ancient mythology and radioactivity - The serpent 'Ouroboros' - The 'Philosopher's Stone' and the 'Elixir of Life' - The 'Fall of Man' and the 'Ascent of Man' ... Speculations on possible forgotten races of men". Text pp.243-244: "Can we not read into them some justification for the belief that some former forgotten race of men attained not only to the knowledge we have so recently won, but also to the power that is not yet ours?"
  3. Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt: dedicated "To Arthur Kitson, the British pioneer of the new economics, to whose writings the author owes his initial interest in the fascinating problems of wealth". Introductory p.26-27: atomic energy stores "are given out at very slow rates in a purely natural process of transmutation ... it appears certain that any process of artificial transmutation would be able to liberate these stores and to render them available as the energy of coal and fuel now is." The book has a section "The Impossibility of Perpetual Motion Machines" (first and second sort).
  4. Cartesian Economics (1922): energy in ordinary materials "of the order of a million times that which can be obtained from fuel during combustion, but ... to liberate this store the transmutation of the elements one into another must first be made possible"; radium "for thousands of years emits as much heat every two days as its own weight of fuel in burning". Kitson named with Gesell as earlier money reformers.
  5. Nature 74, 516-517 (20 Sept 1906), "The Recent Controversy on Radium" (signed F. Soddy): summarises the August 1906 Times correspondence started by Lord Kelvin, who "took exception to the statement, made by the writer ... at the British Association at York, that the production of helium from radium has established the fact of the gradual evolution of one element into others", argued "both cleveite and radium contained helium", and ascribed the sun's heat to gravitation. Soddy names Lodge and Strutt for the new view and H. E. Armstrong as the one chemist with Kelvin, and closes that atomic disintegration "is based on experimental evidence, which even its most hostile opponents are unable to shake or explain in any other way."

How it bears on the claims

  • Claim 2 / correction note: the deep read inferred about 100 cal per hour per gram for the 1911 book from its "freezing to boiling in an hour" sentence. The 1909 first edition states both the same sentence and the explicit number "100 calories per hour" (75 + 25). This supports the inference (see Corrections in sites.md).
  • Claim 2 (energy internal, not borrowed): the 1906 letter is Soddy's own account of the main contemporary challenge (Kelvin: helium pre-existing in radium, sun heated by gravitation). Kelvin's position is stated there by an opponent; Kelvin's own letters (The Times, Aug 1906) were not read in this run.
  • Claim 7: the Chapter XI themes (transmutation as the key to energy, forgotten race, philosopher's stone) were already in the 1909 first edition, which is the edition H. G. Wells credits (see the Gutenberg note). Soddy's economics books apply the same energy argument to wealth (Cartesian Economics, WVWD) and credit Arthur Kitson as his starting point, which matches the Kitson footnote in the 1920 book.