Word: hydrogen
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...Para-Hydrogen. Dr. K. F. Bonhoeffer, 30, timid, blond lecturer in chemistry at the Friedrich-Wilhelms University, Berlin,† demonstrated that there are two kinds of hydrogen molecules. Around a glass tube filled with charcoal he poured liquid hydrogen which cooled the charcoal to almost absolute zero. Then through the frozen charcoal he pumped ordinary hydrogen which, as it poured out of the tube, passed over a wire heated to incandescence. A small mirror reflected a beam of light on a screen. As the treated hydrogen struck the glowing wire it interfered with the light and caused the mirror beam...
Practically all the chemists who witnessed the experiment believed that Dr. Bonhoeffer had split the hydrogen atom. Newspapers so reported the event. That was ridiculous. The hydrogen atom, simplest of the 92 elements, has a single proton at its centre and a single electron swinging around that centre. The two may be particles or they may be waves. (The experiment tended to prove that they were waves.) But they are indivisible. To break them up would wipe them out of existence. However, the hydrogen molecule is composed of two hydrogen atoms. Chemists and physicists have believed that both electrons revolve...
...their Europe-South America Zeppelin line. But some passengers were vexed at the out-of-the-way delay. Their nerves were jumpy because one Frederick S. Hogg, retired Mount Vernon, N. Y., businessman, had smoked a cigar in the ship's lavatory. One spark might have blown up her hydrogen lifting gas. Some of the other passengers wanted Passenger Hogg imprisoned. Capt. Lehmann only reprimanded him, took his cigars and pocket lighter ignominiously away. The ship made the Lakehurst-Friedrichshafen trip in 67 hours. Her time around the world from Friedrichshafen to Friedrichshafen was 20 days, 4 hours?26 hours...
Those Americans were Dr. Eckener's hope for his Ersatzgas. The only lifting gas which he has available in Europe is hazardous hydrogen. Helium, non-inflammable, although not as efficient a lifter as hydrogen, is the only substitute which he knows of, although industrial scientists are searching for others. Helium is a natural U. S. monopoly. By devious corporate interrelations and by performing an air service for the U. S. public, he expects his U. S. collaborators to get him his gas substitute...
There were discomforts aboard?pro-hibition against smoking because of the inflammable hydrogen which kept the Graf Zeppelin afloat, restricted space for exercise, the petty distraction of cards and parlor games. An indication of the passengers' boredom was their excitement at seeing a pair of whales. After two or three days in Lakehurst the Graf Zeppelin was to return to Germany and thence continue on for a world flight by way of Tokyo, Los Angeles, Lakehurst (again) to Friedrichshafen (again). On the Pacific leg she will fly cautiously near land, north up the Japanese coast, then eastward along the Aleutian...