Word: cyclotronic
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These and other new insights into historic works were all gained with the help of an aging machine located in a bunker-like structure on the campus of the University of California at Davis. It is a refurbished cyclotron, an early model particle accelerator that is able to crank a circulating beam of protons up to velocities as high as one-third the speed of light. By focusing the penetrating but low-intensity beam on the documents and then analyzing the spray of the X rays emitted when the protons collide with atoms in the target, Historian Richard Schwab...
Just as remarkable, says Schwab, is that the cyclotron analysis "gets us right back into Gutenberg's original printshop, for which there are no records whatsoever. We've pretty well cracked the code of the day-to-day or page-by- page organization of the Bible." From the various physical and chemical characteristics of the printed page, Schwab has concluded that Gutenberg used six production crews and at least two presses to complete the Bible. He can even identify by page the times when different tasks were shifted around to keep the production crews busy...
...Europeans had visited the continent before the time of Columbus. In 1974, however, some particles of ink from the map were found to be titanium-based. This meant, experts said, that the ink was of 20th century vintage and the map a fraud. But the Davis team, using their cyclotron technique, proved the ink was carbon based, with titanium present only in trace amounts. Says Cahill: "We feel that the question of the map's authenticity is once again open...
Most affected under the federal regulations are Classic C" wastes which do not decay for up to 500 years and must be solidified and hurried 15 meters underground. Among Harvard's only a needle or two from the cyclotron" would fall into this category, Parker I. Cuddington Harvard director of government relations said yesterday...
Presently PET scanning requires highly skilled specialists, including chemists, physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists and physicians. The initial costs are also very high. A cyclotron to make radioactive compounds, PET equipment, and a facility to house the operation can run into millions of dollars. Even so, PET scanners are being set up all over the world. Six years ago, there were only four medical centers in the U.S. where teams of scientists were actively engaged in developing PET. Today there are about ten, including Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Washington University in St. Louis, the University of California in Los Angeles...