"From September 1854 I devoted my whole time to arranging my huge pile of notes, to observing, and to experimenting in relation to the transmutation of species."英文原著 · 《Darwin and Modern Science》
It is a question of great interest to determine the period and the occasion of Darwin's first awakening to the great problem of the transmutation of species. He tells us himself that his grandfather's "Zoonomia" had been read by him "but without producing any effect," and that his friend Grant's rhapsodies on Lamarck and his views on evolution only gave rise to "astonishment." ("L.L." I. page 38.)英文原著 · 《Darwin and Modern Science》
Such was the position when the phenomena of radio-activity threw a new light on the problem, and, for the first time in the history of science, gave definite experimental evidence of the transmutation of matter from one chemical element to another.英文原著 · 《Darwin and Modern Science》
The transmutation theory of radio-activity was formulated by Rutherford (Rutherford, "Radio-activity" (2nd edition), Cambridge, 1905, page 307.) and Soddy in 1903. By its light, all recent work on the subject has been guided; it has stood the supreme test of a hypothesis, and shown power to suggest new investigations and to co-ordinate and explain them, when carried out. We have summarised the evidence which led to the conception of the theory; we have now to consider the progress which has been made in tracing the successive disintegration of radio-active atoms.英文原著 · 《Darwin and Modern Science》
As soon as the transmutation theory of radio-activity was accepted, it became natural to speculate about the intimate structure of the radio- active atoms, and the mode in which they broke up with the liberation of some of their store of internal energy. How could we imagine an atomic structure which would persist unchanged for long periods of time, and yet eventually spontaneously explode, as here an atom and there an atom reached a condition of instability?英文原著 · 《Darwin and Modern Science》
Species, Darwin's early work on transmutation of. --geographical distribution and origin of. --immutability of. --influence on environment on. --Lamarck on. --multiple origin of. --the nature of a. --polymorphic.英文原著 · 《Darwin and Modern Science》