Word: iridium
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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With reverence (and three keys), the scientists will open the doors. Inside, in a triple case of glass, hard rubber and wood, they will find, safe & sound, they hope, the venerated object: a softly gleaming bar of platinum-iridium. On its polished surface are two fine lines. When the bar's temperature is zero degrees centigrade, the distance between those lines is exactly one meter (39.37 inches...
Moreover, Russia was shipping the U.S. war materiel too. While all U.S. imports from Eastern Europe totaled only $153 million, they included 25% of the manganese and 29% of the chrome used in the U.S. Russia had also sent platinum, diamonds, iridium, osmium and palladium...
...Kilogram is a spool-sized chunk of 90% platinum, 10% iridium, weighing exactly one kilogram (2.2046 Ibs.). The Meter, a rod of the same alloy, is exactly one meter (39.37 in.) long. For nearly 70 years nations have sent their standards to the Pavilion de Breteuil for measuring and checking, but modern science has lessened the importance of The Meter at Paris. Instead of using a meter bar for a check, a scientist in a well-equipped laboratory can now determine the accurate meter in terms of light waves, which give as accurate a measure of distance as direct comparison...
...less than a month, the First Lady had I) entertained no Washington newswomen at a White House buffet supper; 2) gone to an ice show in the glittery Iridium Room of Manhattan's St. Regis Hotel; 3) lunched at the exclusive Colony Restaurant with Party-master Elsa Maxwell; 4) attended the opening of the Metropolitan Opera; 5) journeyed to Philadelphia with the President to see the Army-Navy football game...
...insects to a secret cache. Why all the fuss over a tattered bug on a rusty pin? Or a frowsy bird skin? A pickled fish? Because these are the type specimens—the original catches from which the species was first scientifically described and defined. Like the platinum-iridium bar in the International Bureau of Weights and Measures at Sèvres on which the meter is engraved, each specimen is the standard against which other members of the species and new varieties are measured...