Word: electronic
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...tube-which eventually may be used in other color systems-comes in two types. The first has a single electron "gun" in the neck of the tube, which shoots a single beam of electrons-producing three colors: red, blue and green-onto the face of the tube. The millions of electrons are spun in front of a mask containing 117,000 minute holes, or one for every three dots on the viewing screen itself. The holes in the mask expose the incoming electrons to each of the color dots in turn, thus making a picture which approximates the color...
...them all over the place. Newest and most powerful of the smashers is Columbia University's cyclotron at Nevis, an estate at Irvington-on-Hudson that once belonged to James (son of Alexander) Hamilton. The 2,500-ton monster generates a beam of protons with 380 million electron volts of energy. Such voltage is too powerful for mere atom-smashing, which is considered scientific child's play nowadays. The Nevis machine was designed for probing deeper secrets of matter...
...reaction discussed by the author uses deuterium (heavy hydrogen) packed into a layer around the uranium detonator. Deuterium atoms, which are given the comparatively low energy of 100,000 electron volts, says the article, will react with each other on collision, turning into helium 3 and a single free neutron. The products fly apart, with a speed equivalent to 3.3 million electron volts...
...very destructive. It might be much better, says the author, to surround the uranium detonator with lithium hydride. When hydrogen and lithium atoms in this common chemical compound are given sufficient energy, they react with one another, forming two atoms of helium 4. It takes only 100,000 electron volts, says the article, to start the reaction. Each atomic collision yields an enormous amount of energy: 17.3 million electron volts. Thus lithium hydride should give more than twice as much energy per pound as fissioning uranium...
...move at just the right speed. If they moved too slowly, they would bounce off the curium nuclei. If they moved too fast, they would smash the more fragile nuclei. So the scientists adjusted their old reliable 60-inch cyclotron until it emitted alpha particles with 35 million electron volts of energy. This is not high power by modern standards (see above), but it did the trick. The alpha particles entered the curium nuclei and some of them stayed there, turning the curium into Element...