Word: atomically
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...speed the process further, the Administration wants Westinghouse, General Electric and other suppliers of nuclear plants to build them to a standard design that would be relatively simple to repair and maintain. France, which generates 75% of its electricity from the atom -- more than any other nation -- has used a standard reactor since the mid-1970s, enabling any nuclear engineer or plant operator to work on 52 of the country's 55 plants at a moment's notice. By contrast, each of the 112 U.S. nuclear plants, which produce 21% of the nation's electricity, was custom built...
...from the cold war. During top-secret monitoring of the dark side of the moon 25 years ago, U.S. scientists discovered what they feared might be clandestine Soviet nuclear tests in space. Spy satellites picked up massive bursts of gamma rays similar to those released during the explosion of atom bombs. But these bursters, as gamma-ray scientists began to call them, did not match any known pattern. They were brief, lasting from only a fraction of a second up to 100 seconds. Civilian experts were called in to study the data, and the Soviet-nuclear-test theory was eventually...
...nuclear devices go, Galileo's generators were relatively innocuous. Thermoelectric generators are battery-like gadgets that use natural radioactive decay in their fuel cells to produce electric power. Timberwind's engines, on the other hand, are true nuclear reactors that split atoms and generate heat, using the same chain reactions that power atom bombs. Although modern nuclear engineering has virtually eliminated the risk of explosions and meltdowns in such reactors, the problem of disposing of radioactive wastes has not gone away. Nor has the stigma attached to nuclear reactors in general. "If anybody tries launching a reactor-powered rocket," says...
...physicist Alexander Simon has everything, including the Theory of Everything. His new, Nobel-size hypothesis ties up the movement of the tides and the invisible violence of the atom, the phenomenon of light and the drag of gravity. If only this young Einstein were a think-tank nerd, he could insulate himself from the challenges of academic inquiry and worldwide publicity...
That Saddam intends to develop a nuclear arsenal is doubted by no one. He has openly bragged that Iraq will be the first Arab nation to wield an atom bomb. But most experts -- including those in the Administration -- believe that Bush is greatly overstating the immediate danger posed by Iraq's nuclear arms program...