Word: atom
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Nuclear disintegration as brought about by the action of cosmic rays on dense materials has been the subject of long research at the New Research Laboratory. One of the purposes of the experiments is to determine the size of the nucleus of an atom of any particular substance. In the course of their investigation the scientists also hope to find out if there are any other cosmic ray particles in addition to high-speed electrons...
...Among them: Ernest Orlando Lawrence, University of California atom-smasher (TIME, July 3); Columbia's Harold Clayton Urey, discoverer of heavy hydrogen (TIME, July 3); Walter Edward Dandy, Johns Hopkins pathologist (TIME, Jan. 8); Otto Struve, University of Chicago astronomer (TIME...
This, according to the researchers, is probably what happens: The attacking alpha particle joins a boron atom to form a neutron (which flies off) and an unstable nitrogen atom which in a few seconds or minutes changes to a carbon atom with the release of a positron. Hence, just as the spontaneous radioactivity of radium turns it finally into lead, the end-product of boron's artificial radioactivity is carbon. Not only boron but magnesium and aluminum became radioactive under similar treatment...
...Curie-Joliot report stirred Lord Rutherford, director of Cavendish Laboratory, to begin confirming experiments. Said he, "It is remarkable that the life of the unstable atom produced is as long as it is. We do not know whether the atoms so far made artificially radioactive are typical or whether other unstable atoms which may be produced will have a longer or shorter life. The discovery of the Joliots shows how little we really know about radioactivity...
...away from the workshop only a month. She and M. Joliot get up at 5:30, write their papers ("What a burden!"), are glad to reach the laboratory at 9. They keep long hours, find no time for theatres and concerts. For three months in summer they leave the atom in peace, take the children to grandmother Curie's place on the Brittany coast. There is never a thought of dividing scientific credit. Husband and wife work like one person with two heads, four hands, 20 fingers. "We compare notes," says M. Joliot, "and exchange our thoughts so constantly...