Word: instants
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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While the audience screamed with laughter, six simpering oldsters pranced onstage in ballet costume; a blindfolded man, expecting to kiss a pretty girl, kissed a cow instead; an unwary young woman sat-just for an instant-on an electrically charged chair...
...soon as it became evident that the Government of the U.S. might vanish in one cloudy instant if an A-bomb landed in downtown Washington, the idea struck Government planners: Why not move the tempting targets and save the city? Last week President Truman asked Congress for $139,800,000 to begin a dispersal of key agencies...
Atomic bombs might be exploded in the air over U.S. cities, under water, or at ground level. Though the effects are different in each case, the principle is the same. At the instant a bomb explodes overhead, fission turns it into a rapidly growing "ball of fire," which dims for an imperceptible instant, then grows to a diameter of 900 feet at a temperature of 7,000° C. (see diagram). Around the fire ball forms a shock wave - a shell of air compressed so tightly that it glows white...
...delayed effects of radiation received in the human body an instant after the blast are more serious, and may cause lingering death. However, no more than 15% (perhaps as few as 5%) of the casualties at Hiroshima are now known to have been caused by radiation sickness. Most survivors of radiation sickness recover completely. Stories of widespread, permanent sterility are now known to be groundless. Shortly after exposure, pregnant women are likely to miscarry, and children conceived in this period may be monsters. But after two or three months, the danger of such aftereffects wears...
...Capitan began sliding ahead of the Chief, crewmen on its big diesel heard "something dragging" underneath the mail coach-a brake rigging had broken and dropped to the ties. An instant later, the mail coach lurched off the rails, derailing the Capitan's passenger coaches behind it. Car 2918, El Capitan's middle coach, hurtled off the tracks and sideswiped the Chiefs locomotive, knocking it off the rails into the light brush along the right of way; the Chief's passenger cars jolted, but stayed on the track...