Word: hydrogenating
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...dirigible Hindenburg, pronounced at Lakehurst three weeks after the disaster (TIME, May 31): A Report by the U. S. Department of Commerce corroborating Eckener's reasoning that atmospheric electricity (otherwise known as St. Elmo's fire or "brush discharge") accumulated on the ship must have ignited leaking hydrogen. Weighed and rejected by the investigating committee were theories of sabotage, broken propeller, ignition by radio spark, structural failure, lightning...
...tree. He had three methods of releasing or destroying balloons: 1) scissors to cut the balloon cords; 2) explosives on the balloon cords; 3) a .22 calibre pistol. Before landing he used all three. Either the explosives or the gunfire set afire the balloons, which were inflated with hydrogen, and the balloonist barely managed to scramble down the tree before the gondola was enveloped in flames. Somewhat shaken but unhurt except for scratches and bruises, he sent a classic telegram to Mrs. Piccard, herself a stratosphere veteran: "Landed safely, Lansing, Iowa. Balloon under perfect control. All equipment burned...
Last winter Chemist Wendell Meredith Stanley of the Rockefeller Institute appeared at Atlantic City where the Association for the Advancement of Science was holding its annual meeting, and informed the whole scientific world 1) that a virus was a huge molecule composed basically of nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, weighing 17,000,000 times as-much as a hydrogen molecule, and measuring one seven-hundred-thousandth of an inch in diameter; 2) that he had crystallized a typical virus (which causes mosaic diseases in tobacco plants) by chemical treatment; 3) that he had modified the virus molecule chemically and produced...
...fire spread so fast that few stories of its origin jibed. But several witnesses clung to their story of the port rear engine racing and spouting sparks. These might have ignited hydrogen valved out during the descent. Airships usually valve gas in landing. The vents are on top and the gas is so light that it usually rises straight up. The Hindenburg was slightly nose down at the instant of the fire and still moving fairly fast. Conceivably a freak breeze might have combined with the slipstream to waft a whiff of gas into engine sparks...
Whatever the spark's origin, the fire probably meant the end of hydrogen in passenger airships, though the Germans have lost few ships from that cause. The Hindenburg was LZ129. Of her 128 German predecessors, ten never left the drawing board, 25 were lost by storm and accident, six by causes unknown, 21 were dismantled, 46 were wrecked by the War, eleven were surrendered to the Allies, seven were sabotaged to prevent surrender, two are left-the decommissioned Los Angeles at Lakehurst and the sturdy old Graf, which arrived the day after the tragedy in Frankfort from...