Word: cockcroft
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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First master of Churchill College will be Sir John Cockcroft, founder and head of Britain's atomic research center at Harwell. His qualifications are impressive: in 1932, while working at Cambridge under Lord Rutherford, he and Physicist E.T.S. Walton earned a Nobel Prize for pioneer work in splitting lithium atoms. Behind Sir Winston and Sir John in the project are many of Britain's industrial leaders, who have given most of the $8,000,000 already collected toward the $11 million the college is expected to cost. (U.S. firms have also made contributions, and Sir Winston has given...
Back from a one-week official visit to Russia, Sir John Cockcroft, in charge of research for Britain's Atomic Energy Authority, reported that the Russians are working hard on the problem of controlled fusion. He estimated that the situation is about "level pegging" between the Russians on one side, the British and Americans on the other. The Russians have an experimental machine which is virtually the twin of Britain's famous Zeta. But they built it in six months, while Britain needed two years. They have also constructed a "mirror machine," a U.S. specialty which is another...
...Cockcroft was especially impressed with the amount of money and manpower the Russians are allocating to the fusion-power drive. Admitted Cockcroft: "The Russians are at about the same stage as ourselves, but they are working on a much broader front. They are faced with the same problems, but they work three or four times faster...
...question is whether these neutrons really come from the fusion of deuterium into helium 3. Powerful electrical discharges can give "false neutrons." formed in other and less important ways, but Scientist Cockcroft is "90% certain" that at least some of ZETA's neutrons come from a thermonuclear reaction. Dr. Thonemann of Harwell does not want to commit himself definitely. U.S. scientists are not sure either. Dr. James Tuck, head of the Los Alamos group, wants to learn more before he makes positive statements...
...even as much energy as it consumes. All sorts of thorny practical problems will have to be solved before thermonuclear energy flows through practical wires. No one wants to predict definitely how long it will take. "It couldn't possibly be less than ten years," says Sir John Cockcroft. "It might be as long as 50. Twenty plus is about the most reasonable guess...