Word: hydrogen
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Harvard clock a thin trickle of hydrogen gas flows through an apparatus that splits its two-atom molecules into single atoms. Each of these atoms has one proton and one electron, but some of them have slightly more energy than the others because their electrons are spinning in a different way. When the atom stream shoots through a system of magnets, the low-energy atoms in it are deflected sideways while the high-energy ones converge, pass through a small hole in a 6-in. quartz bulb. The bulb is lined with paraffin which does not affect the atom...
...bulb in one second, the agitated gas gets dense enough to support a sort of chain reaction. A few atoms spontaneously lose their extra energy, which they emit in the form of photons (units) of radio microwaves about 21 cm. (8.3 in.) long. The newborn photons hit other hydrogen atoms and make them emit photons too. Then a pulse of microwaves bursts from the bulb and is gathered as high-frequency current by apparatus outside...
...this were all that they may do, there would be little excitement. But U-235 is not an ordinary commodity; only a few-pounds, perhaps less, are now required to make the detonator for a hydrogen bomb that can smash the world's biggest city. The other nuclear ingredients of such bombs, deuterium and lithium 6, are comparatively easy to come by. High skill and knowledge are needed to assemble these devices, but both can be acquired by any purposeful nation, however small...
...first of the new clocks, begun last March, has a unique box that stores high-energy-level hydrogen atoms long enough for them to give off 21 centimeter radiation. The oscillating wave it omits is o' such stability and purity of tone that the maser promises to become a new standard for time and frequency measurement...
...remaining Labour M.P.'s will probably follow the example of K. Zilliacus, one of their number who declared the other day that "Mr. Gaitskell's arrogance and fanaticism and hydrogen-bomb strategy mean that he is not fit to lead the party and will have to go." This group may propose to replace Gaitskell with Harold Wilson, a non-leftist who is nonetheless unlikely to quarrel with the conference...