Word: positronic
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This, according to the researchers, is probably what happens: The attacking alpha particle joins a boron atom to form a neutron (which flies off) and an unstable nitrogen atom which in a few seconds or minutes changes to a carbon atom with the release of a positron. Hence, just as the spontaneous radioactivity of radium turns it finally into lead, the end-product of boron's artificial radioactivity is carbon. Not only boron but magnesium and aluminum became radioactive under similar treatment...
Cambridge's "positron" is a particle of positive electricity no heavier than the particle of negative electricity called the electron. Protons, heretofore considered the smallest unit of positive electricity, weigh 1,850 times as much as electrons. Cambridge's Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac long ago declared that mathematical necessities require the existence of light-weight protons. Last year Caltech's Carl David Anderson noticed some ion tracks which implied impacts from Theorist Dirac's light protons. Before the Royal Society last fortnight, Dr. P. M. S. Blackett, 35, tall, pale member of Lord Rutherford...