Word: nuclei
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Normal matter is organized into tight little worlds-atoms-with positive protons in their nuclei and negative electrons revolving around them. There is also a homeless waif, the positron (positive electron), that seems to have no place in this orderly scheme. Born in atomic catastrophes, it lives only until it hits a normal electron. Then the two "annihilate" one another, turning into gamma rays...
...Fusion" of light elements, on which the hydrogen bomb depends, is the senior source of nuclear energy. More than 20 years ago, at Cambridge University, Physicists John D. Cockcroft and Ernest T. S. Walton shot hydrogen nuclei (protons) from a primitive high-voltage machine at a lithium target. A few of the protons hit lithium nuclei. The product of each such reaction: two atoms of helium and 17.3 million electron-volts of energy...
...bomb, the main charge is made up of liquefied hydrogen isotopes: tritium and deuterium. The precious tritium is the most reactive. It combines readily with deuterium, and the energy that results raises the temperature sufficiently to make deuterium nuclei combine in pairs, forming helium and giving off more energy...
...magnet is quiet, snoring softly, but in a ring-shaped vacuum chamber running around inside it, a dangerous, man-made genie throbs and thrashes. Out of an electric arc springs a swarm of protons (hydrogen nuclei). Powerful forces grab them and speed them down a channel toward the great machine. They sail into the chamber, and the magnet steers them in a circular orbit...
...Cole hinted strongly that hydrogen bombs have grown much better since 1952, and that still more improvement is in prospect. "The 1952 tests," he said, "did not mark the end of the line in hydrogen research. Terrible secrets still lie undiscovered in the fusion of nuclei. In due course, we can be sure, the ingenuity of man will ferret out these secrets...