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Show New Facts About Oxygen Berkeley, Calif. Oxygen, the gas which constitutes a fifth of the air we breathe, and which Is essential to our life. Is really triplets. It la Dot twins, as was recently suggested. the oxygen molecules were made of an atom of weight alxteen combined with one of weight eighteen. Since they announced this they bave die covered the presence of the third Isotope, Iso-tope, so that there Is still a third kind of oxygene molecule, consisting of an atom of weight sixteen combined com-bined with one ot weight seventeen. However, the atoms of weight sixteen six-teen must be In the vast majority, and the typical molecule must consist con-sist of a pair of atoms of weight sixteen, six-teen, as the atomic weight of ordinary oxygen has been determined to be sixteen six-teen with great precision. Any great amount of the other Isotopes Iso-topes would make the average atomic weight of oxygen appreciably greater than this figure. or single, as It was thought tor many years. This has been discovered her by two University of California experimenters, experi-menters, Prof. W. r. Giauque and H L, Johnstone. They bave found that oxygen In the air consists not only of the element with atomic weight of alxteen but that there are small numbers num-bers of heavier atoms. Soma weigh seventeen and others weigh eighteen. These make op forms of oxygen which are like ordinary oxygen In all respects except atomic weight and are called Isotopes of oxygen. oxy-gen. Many other elements, notably lead, have been found to have Iso topes, chemically similar, but of different dif-ferent atomic weight The Investigators have discovered this fact from a atudy of the way light Is absorbed as It passes through a thick layer of air, as with sunlight In the late afternoon. The oxygen absorbs ab-sorbs certRln wave lengths of light and from these Professor Giauque and Mr. Johnstone have calculated the weight of the atoms that produce the effect Recently they found that- some ot |