Word: liquidly
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...atom contains only one proton and one electron, which makes it the lightest element known to science. It is completely colorless, completely odorless. And it is that ultimate simplicity that has earned for hydrogen some of the most sophisticated jobs in modern science. Refrigerated into a liquid state, hydrogen is helping physicists to peer into the heart of the atom, to trace the fleeting histories of the smallest building blocks of matter. Space scientists are depending on it to launch the Apollo spacecraft that will take the first U.S. astronauts to the moon...
Simplicity, however, is not hydrogen's only attribute. In its liquid state, it is one of the most intractable and unforgiving substances on earth. It is given to violent explosions on the slightest opportunity. It was only natural that the very presence of a tank of liquid hydrogen was immediately blamed last week for the blasts that rocked the Harvard-M.I.T. electron accelerator laboratory at Cambridge and injured eight young scientists...
...remained a mere curiosity until after World War II. Then it was enlisted as a tool in the modern specialty of cryogenics (the science and technology of very low temperatures), which has been instrumental in developments ranging from exotic new metals to important new discoveries in superconductivity. Liquid hydrogen came into its own when it was put to use in bubble chambers for experiments in high-energy physics. In such studies, accelerators smash the nucleus of a hydrogen atom, scattering subnuclear debris through the bubble chamber, where scientists can follow and photograph the paths of the tiny charged particles...
Valuable as liquid hydrogen is in the lab, though, the men who use it can never forget its dangerous characteristics. The trouble is, it really does not want to be a liquid. Forced into a fluid state by powerful refrigeration machines, it must be sealed in a double-walled vacuum container and kept constantly below its boiling point (-423° F.) to control vaporization. As a liquid, it is not readily flammable. It is when it vaporizes and comes in contact with oxygen that hydrogen becomes explosive. Which makes for a vicious problem: how to let off the inevitable vapors...
...natural resource and claim a tax-depletion allowance, just as if he were producing oil? Shurbet was not selling the water the way an oilman sells oil; still, it was a necessary part of his business. He knocked $377.91 off his 1959 income tax to cover his dwindling liquid capital...