Word: liquidation
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...France, and in another tunnel under Mount Elbrus in the Soviet Union, scientists carefully examined data from computer printouts. They were hoping that some of the ethereal particles called neutrinos, predicted by theory to be produced during a supernova, had penetrated the earth, leaving their trail in huge liquid- filled neutrino detectors. Astrophysicist J. Craig Wheeler, of the University of Texas in Austin, summarized the activity while addressing a hastily convened meeting of astronomers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center the week after the discovery, "These are frantic times...
...SOON as I was settled, the nurse informed me that she had to remove some of that weird red liquid that once did something vital in my body. She also said she had to measure the pressure of the liquid that was still doing something vital in my body. Fine, I thought--common procedure for incoming patients...
...degrees F) and discovered that it had lost its resistance to electric current. Since then more than two dozen chemical elements and hundreds of compounds have been found to be superconductors near that temperature extreme. The only practical way to make something that cold is to bathe it in liquid helium, which exists only at temperatures below 4 K. But helium is rare, and expensive to liquefy. Even so, the efficiency of electromagnets wound with superconducting wires is so great that in certain situations the expense is justified...
...example, giant particle accelerators require extremely powerful magnets to keep the particles confined to a circular track as they move at nearly the speed of light. At Fermilab, near Chicago, the world's most powerful accelerator, known as Tevatron, uses more than 1,000 superconducting magnets cooled with liquid helium at a cost of $5 million a year. But the efficiency of the magnets saves Fermilab an estimated $185 million annually in electric energy costs. The superconducting super collider, a mammoth accelerator 52 miles in circumference, endorsed last month by President Reagan for completion in the 1990s at a projected...
...most uses, however, the cost of liquid helium outweighs the benefits of superconducting technology. For that reason, scientists have long searched for a compound that would become a superconductor at less extreme temperatures -- particularly above 77 K (-320 degrees F), the point at which nitrogen gas liquefies. Reason: nitrogen is a common gas and costs no more than a tenth as much in liquid form as helium. In fact, says Iowa State University Physicist Douglas Finnemore, liquid nitrogen, priced as low as a nickel a liter, is a "heck of a lot cheaper than beer...