"Alpha rays" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... amount needed for this is infinitesimal. If it were more it would scorch our skins, for radium is an element in eruption. The atom throws off corpuscles at intervals as a Roman candle throws off blazing balls. Some of these particles, the alpha rays, are atoms of another element, helium, charged with positive electricity and are ejected with a velocity of 18,000 miles a second. Some of them, the beta rays, are negative electrons, only about one seven-thousandth the size of the others, but are ejected with almost the speed of light, ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... three distinct types of rays named after the first three letters of the Greek alphabet—Alpha, Beta, Gamma—besides a gas emanation as does thorium which is a powerfully radio-active substance. The Alpha rays constitute ninety-nine per cent, of all the rays and consist of positively electrified particles. Under the influence of magnetism they can be deflected. They have little penetrative power and are readily absorbed in passing through ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing |
