Word: atomically
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...thought and have been confined to the realms of fantasy and imagination . . . We do not know what the Soviets are doing inside their vast ocean of land, [but] it does not follow that the H-bomb is particularly favorable to them. Their enormous . . . territory, which seemed to limit the atom bomb ... is no longer likely to give the same immunity to the far wider effects of the hydrogen bomb and the clouds of radioactive dust and vapors to which it gives rise...
...when many of the U.S.'s allies seemed politically mesmerized by the mushrooming cloud of the thermonuclear bomb (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), Molotov adroitly played on man's justified concern over the power he now holds in his arsenals: "There can be no doubt that the employment of atomic and hydrogen weapons in a war . . . would mean the wholesale annihilation of civilians and the destruction of big cities ..." Here the aim was the usual-to excite the excitable world into banning atom-age weapons so that the wide-open U.S. would not be able to have any, while Iron...
...sugar. Since most of the protons missed their targets, the hydrogen-lithium reaction gave a net loss of energy, and no one knew how to improve its efficiency. Other reactions of light elements yielded theoretical energy too, but all of them were overshadowed by the wartime development of atom-splitting uranium fission...
...scientists, however, did not forget fusion. Graven on their minds was a curious set of facts: when the elements are arranged in series according to their atomic weights, the atoms of those in the center of the series are lighter than they "should be." So when an atom of uranium (the heaviest natural element) splits into two fragments and a few loose neutrons, all the pieces, added together, weigh less than the original uranium atom. By Einstein's famous equation (E = Mc2), this loss of weight shows up as the energy that powers uranium bombs...
...similar thing happens at the light end of the series. If light atoms, e.g., hydrogen, are packed together into a larger atom, it weighs less than the pieces that form it. Here again, the loss of weight shows up as energy. A little figuring told the physicists that a given amount of a light element, forced to fuse, would yield more energy than the same amount of uranium. Besides, light elements are plentiful, while uranium is scarce...