Word: deuterium
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...direct measurement of the minimum energy required to cause one of the simplest chemical reactions known to science. An absolute minimum of one-third of an electron volt is needed, they discovered, to split a hydrogen molecule into two hydrogen atoms and to combine one of them with a deuterium atom to form deuterium hydride. An addition of any less energy and the reaction will not occur...
Beginning with the light of shortest wave length (and thus the highest energy), they aimed a beam from the grating through a Pyrex cylinder containing hydrogen and deuterium iodide gas, which breaks down when exposed to light. When molecules of deuterium iodide were struck by photons in the light beam, they split into fast-moving atoms of deuterium and sluggish, heavier atoms of iodine. Some of the speeding deuterium atoms in turn collided with hydrogen molecules in the cylinder, knocking off one of the hydrogen atoms and combining with the other to form deuterium hydride...
...power to produce the snooper's stream of neutrons comes from a simple gasoline engine that runs a primitive type of particle accelerator. A beam of deuterium (or heavy hydrogen) particles emitted by the generator is directed against deuterium absorbed in a titanium target. As the deuterium particles collide, they release neutrons that are channeled into a beam that can cover a two-square-foot area of ground. The entire device, including the recording instruments, is small and light enough to be carried in the back of a Jeep. It has already been given trials in the field...
...Billion Volts. Last week a team of Columbia University researchers dispelled the doubts. In the Physical Review Letters, the Columbia scientists reported that they have produced the first complex nucleus of antimatter ever observed-the anti-deuteron. It is the antimatter counterpart to the nucleus of deuterium (heavy hydrogen), consists of an antiproton and antineutron bound by a strong nuclear force, and has a negative charge. Such an achievement, the Columbia researchers conclude, provides strong evidence to support theories about the existence of an antiworld of stars, planets, and possibly even antipeople...
...idea. (He found out years later that somebody else had had the idea before him, but had not pursued it.) Why not make use of some of the techniques of nuclear physics and inject into the patient a carefully measured dose of heavy water (D20, the oxide of deuterium, the nonradioactive isotope of hydrogen)? When the D20 and the body's ordinary water (H2O) were thoroughly mixed, the dilution of the heavy water would show the body's total water volume. All this was easier said than done; it took 2½ years to get results that satisfied...