Word: atomically
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...President Truman said, a "harnessing of the basic power of the universe." That power is contained in the atom, the fundamental unit in nature. An infinitesimal universe in itself, the atom consists of a nucleus of protons and neutrons, around which electrons swing in widely spaced orbits, like planets around...
...drop of water were enlarged to the size of the earth, each atom in it would be about the size of an orange. Yet most of an atom is empty space through which the electrons whirl. The nucleus itself occupies only one million-billionth of the atom's bulk...
...Target. The atom's energy, "the basic power of the universe," is contained in the nucleus. To release that energy, this unimaginably small object must be "split" or "smashed." For would-be atom-smashers, the atomic nucleus thus became a target. The problem was to find a bullet small and tough enough to blast it, and a gun powerful and accurate enough to aim that bullet...
...Event. Sunday-supplement readers had long been warned that if ever an atom were split, the whole world might blow up. Yet when the great event occurred, only the scientific world quivered...
...succeeded because he chose the right target, an atom of an extremely rare form of uranium (U 235), which he bombarded with a stream of neutrons. The explosion which occurred when the uranium atom finally split was, proportionately, the greatest man-made blast in history; it released 200 million electron-volts. But because the source and volume were so small, the shock was not enough to knock a fly off the wall. As war overtook the world, the problem of releasing atomic energy in quantity, as for a bomb, still remained unsolved...