Word: nuclei
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...atom-smashers, the Cosmotron at Brookhaven and the Bevatron at Berkeley, Calif. The atom-smashers have, in their few years of operation, raised more problems than they have solved. One of their most baffling stunts was to produce the K meson, a short-lived particle knocked out of atomic nuclei. In all significant ways K mesons are alike, but some of them, called "tau K mesons," decay into three pi mesons; others, called "theta K mesons," decay into only two pi mesons. For mathematical reasons which physicists can explain only to other physicists, this inconsistent behavior seemed to violate...
...return with stay-at-home contemporaries, Dr. Crawford uses mu mesons. When these subatomic particles are at rest in relation to the earth, they disintegrate in an average earth time of less than two-millionths of a second. But when they are created by cosmic rays hitting atomic nuclei high in the atmosphere, they seem to have comparative immortality. Many of them reach the earth's surface more than ten miles below, although their short "rest lives" would permit them, even moving at the speed of light itself, to travel about one-third of a mile. The reason they...
...Mesic" Atoms. Closer study showed that the mu mesons, which have negative electric charges, had attached themselves to positive hydrogen nuclei and were revolving around them as electrons normally do. Since mu mesons are 210 times heavier than electrons, the laws that govern the internal affairs of atoms force them to revolve at only 1/210th of the distance of electrons. The "mesic" atom formed in this way is somewhat heavier than an ordinary hydrogen atom but extremely small. It can therefore sift through the electron defenses of ordinary atoms and fuse with their nuclei...
This is what was happening in the bubble chamber. Mesons were forming mesic atoms with the nuclei of heavy hydrogen (deuterium), which they prefer to ordinary hydrogen. A meson so occupied makes no bubbles, and this accounted for the gaps in the meson tracks. But when a mesic deuterium atom hits an atom of ordinary hydrogen, the nuclei fuse together, forming an atom of helium 3 and releasing 5.4 million electron-volts of energy. The meson shoots off, carrying the energy as velocity, and is none the worse for its experience. It may form another mesic atom and cause...
Most of the pilots were scientists-chiefly meteorologists, electronics engineers, aerodynamicists-who devoted their spare time and their rainy hours to such pursuits as lectures by Geophysicist Joachim Kuettner on "A New Investigation of Stratospheric and Tropospheric Airflow in Powerful Mountain Waves," or "Research on the Transport of Freezing Nuclei and on Atmospheric Turbulence by Means of a Sailplane...