Word: nucleus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...uranium nucleus splits into barium and krypton atoms, which are highly excited, unstable and artificially radioactive. They throw off gamma and beta radiation, and finally, in an effort to lose mass, they spout neutrons. If these neutrons are slowed by such substances as graphite, paraffin, heavy water or ordinary water, they will touch off other uranium nuclei. In a tiny fraction of a second the reaction will run through a good-sized sample of uranium, containing trillions of atoms, and the result will be a cataclysmic blast...
...Albert Einstein, no experimenter, launched the idea that mass and energy are the same thing, in different states. The matter in the nucleus or core of the atom (which is practically all the matter there is) was conceived as a packet of energy in highly concentrated form...
...drop of water were enlarged to the size of the earth, each atom in it would be about the size of an orange. Yet most of an atom is empty space through which the electrons whirl. The nucleus itself occupies only one million-billionth of the atom's bulk...
...Target. The atom's energy, "the basic power of the universe," is contained in the nucleus. To release that energy, this unimaginably small object must be "split" or "smashed." For would-be atom-smashers, the atomic nucleus thus became a target. The problem was to find a bullet small and tough enough to blast it, and a gun powerful and accurate enough to aim that bullet...
Such a "gun" was invented in 1932 by University of California's brilliant young Ernest Orlando Lawrence. He called it a cyclotron. But the cyclotron failed to do more than chip off particles from the target nuclei, leaving the body of the nucleus intact, releasing comparatively little energy...