Word: electronics
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...experiments are based upon a generally accepted theory that the cosmic rays (high speed electrons, etc.), which are traveling toward the earth, cause a slight disintegration of the nuclei of the atoms of a substance through which they pass. The collision of a high speed electron with the nucleus knocks electrons out of it. The precipitation of these minute nuclear particles is known as a "shower...
...closest known approximation of the human eye (TIME, July 10). Designed for television, the device was called the iconoscope. On 20 square inches of mica were 3,000,000 dots of photosensitive material. Light falling on the mica set up an electromagnetic tension which was discharged by an electron beam. The changing pattern of this discharge could be transmitted by radio. At the receiving end the image was reproduced on a fluorescent screen by a reversal of the iconoscope's operating principle...
Eight years ago an astute French theorist named Louis de Broglie enlarged and vastly complicated the field of subatomic study by endowing orbital electrons with the properties of waves or pulsations. Erwin Schrodinger then began work which led to a potent development of this idea. He replaced the classical equations for electron motion with new differential equations similar to those which describe the wave motion which constitutes light and sound. Thus the atom is conceived as a positive nucleus wrapped in a throbbing field of negative electricity. To expound these ticklish ideas to U. S. scientists slim, smallish, pleasant-spoken...
...physics in Germany? They call it the 'Boy Physics.' " Werner Heisenberg at 21 had distinguished himself by studies on the Zeeman effect (splitting of spectrum lines when light comes from an electromagnetic field). Independently of the de Broglie wave mechanics, he devised an abstruse mathematical description of electronic behavior which he called "matrix mechanics." He saw the necessity of a wave concept as well as anyone else, but he followed the Newtonian principle that hypotheses should be avoided. In the light of wave mechanics alone, electrons lost their individualities, melted into a continuous field of negative electricity...
Wave mechanics and matrix mechanics are different mathematical expressions of the same theory. A third description of electron behavior, which strengthened rather than contradicted the other two representations, was contributed by last week's third prizewinner, Cambridge University's brilliant young Dr. Dirac. Also, long before lightweight protons or "positrons" were experimentally observed by Caltech's Dr. Carl David Anderson (TIME, March 6), Dr. Dirac had declared such particles to be required by mathematical necessity. But this shy, angular youngster with small Wack eyes and small black mustache, already a big frog in the subatomic puddle, made...