Word: bhabhas
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...Russians, who showed up as strong on theory, weaker on practical application. Calling for "regular" meetings in the future, the Russians announced they would supply their allies with the tools of peacetime atomics, including a 6,500 kw. reactor for Red China. The conference chairman, India's Homi Bhabha, was happiest about the lack of politics interfering with science. "There should be another conference," he said. "But let's wait three years. This will give time for some more really interesting information to accumulate...
Some scientists thought Bhabha highly optimistic, but he insisted that he was actually speaking conservatively, that fusion power might come even sooner. Would fusion replace fission in reactors? he was asked. Said Bhabha: "There will probably be a place for all of them. Airplanes have not eliminated railroads...
Gentler Triggers. Although Bhabha was the first topflight scientist to predict the coming of H-power, the prospect has intrigued his brethren everywhere (TIME, July 25). Present atomic reactors all use the fission process: splitting nuclei of the heavier atoms, e.g., uranium or plutonium, to produce a controllable reaction. But fusion, used solely in the H-bomb, involves binding the nuclei of far more plentiful, lighter atoms (deuterium, lithium, etc.) under tremendous heat to produce an explosion...
...only an exploding A-bomb has provided enough heat to trigger off fusion. But it is theoretically possible. Bhabha suggested, that other far less violent triggers can be fashioned to produce fusion without explosions. For example, high-voltage linear accelerators have been designed to propel particles at high speeds through electrical fields to give them high energy but little heat effect; a low-voltage, high-current accelerator shooting more particles at lower speeds might supply the few millions of degrees required for fusion. Even ordinary TNT "shaped charge" explosions might do the triggering. Already, said Bhabha. Indian theoretical scientists were...
Pressed to comment on Bhabha's fore cast, AEC Chairman Lewis Strauss disclosed what most scientists already knew: the U.S. (like Russia and Britain) has long been experimenting with fusion power on "a moderate scale." But, he added, H-power is a long-range project, and, barring an early, unforeseen "breakthrough," uranium will be the standard reactor fuel for some time to come...