Word: electromagnetism
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...respects scientists know little about it. Last week Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced an attack on the elusive mysteries. With $6,000,000 from the U.S. Air Force, M.I.T. will build an ambitious laboratory devoted solely to the study of magnetism. Main feature: the world's most powerful electromagnet-a giant coil that will maintain a continuous magnetic field of 250,000 gauss, some 500,000 times stronger than the earth's magnetic field...
Mechanized Dinosaur. With the promise of $2,000,000 from the Atomic Energy Commission, Alvarez and his team went to work on a chamber 6 ft. long. The difficulties became fantastic. The electromagnet surrounding the chamber had to weigh 200 tons. The great machine had to be movable, but wheels were too unstable. Instead, it was given four massive feet on which it could be walked around like a mechanical dinosaur. Leak detectors were installed everywhere to watch for escaping hydrogen; 104 alarm circuits inside the machine flash lights, ring bells and honk horns at the slightest hint of trouble...
...Lawrence calculated that they could be made to whirl progressively faster in a closed chamber, reaching great speed and high voltages. They could then smash atoms and transmute elements. He first demonstrated this phenomenon with a crude but spectacular Rube Goldbergish kit: a kitchen chair, clothes tree, 4-in. electromagnet, pie-sized vacuum chamber made of glass, brass and sealing wax, all put together for $25. When he hooked this odd gizmo up to an ordinary electric socket, atoms whirled around faster than those emitted by radium...
...expert related just how serious electronic warfare can get. An attorney who had learned that his opponent planned to introduce into court the tape recording of a secret meeting carried a powerful, battery-operated electromagnet into court in his briefcase. He placed his briefcase near the opposition lawyer's tape. The magnet erased the recording, left the rival attorney with a blank tape and blank expression when he got up to play the evidence...
...gives little idea of the machine's talents. Its strong point is its "inner memory." This "memory" consists of nine big aluminum cylinders revolving up to 7,200 r.p.m. Their surfaces are coated with black magnetic material. Huddled around them are staggered rows of little brass blocks enclosing electromagnets. When a brief electric impulse flashes through an electromagnet, it prints a dot of magnetism on the spinning cylinder's surface. The dot stands for part of a coded number for the machine to store in its memory...