Note on the nature of cosmic rays

Abstract

The recent experiments of Bothe and Kolhoerster(1) have led to an important and interesting conclusion. The ionization phenomena, by means of which cosmic rays are measured, are produced by highly penetrating corpuscular rays. It remains, however, an open question whether this corpuscular radiation is identical with the cosmic rays themselves, or is secondary in its nature, produced by primary rays of an electromagnetic character. Bothe and Kolhoerster admit both possibilities, but they seem to lean toward the first, owing to the fact that their corpuscular rays show a penetration of the same order of magnitude as that of the cosmic rays themselves.