Word: proton
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Under the Alpher-Herman hypothesis, the gas, constantly expanding, soon cooled enough to allow an occasional proton to join with a neutron, forming the two-part nucleus of heavy hydrogen. Then, little by little, larger nuclei were formed, such as lithium, boron and carbon. Most of the nuclei grew by capturing more neutrons. When they captured too many, they became unstable. Then some of the neutrons inside them turned into protons and electrons. The electrons shot off as high-energy beta particles...
Before a select audience of 250 rapt ladies and a dozen faintly bored gentlemen, some 13 bosomy A.E. Associates in flowing evening gowns gyrated gracefully about a stage in earnest imitation of atomic forces at work. An ample electron in black lace wound her way around two matrons labeled "proton" and "neutron" while an elderly ginger-haired Geiger counter clicked out their radioactive effect on a pretty girl named Agriculture. At a climactic moment, a Mrs. Monica Davial raced across the stage in spirited representation of a rat eating radioactive cheese. Mrs. Davial, it was noted in the program...
Tritium is the big brother of the hydrogen family. Ordinary hydrogen has one lone proton in its nucleus with an electron circling around it. Deuterium (heavy hydrogen) has one proton and one neutron in its nucleus. Tritium (heavy heavy hydrogen) has one proton and two neutrons. It is feebly radioactive, with a half-life of about twelve years. Drs. Libby and Grosse detected it through its radiation in samples of heavy (deuterium-containing) water. Its presence in heavy water had been suspected for some time, but not conclusively proved...
...hydrogen bomb's necessary ingredients (a principal one, Dr. Bacher implies) is tritium, the heavy form of hydrogen with one proton and two neutrons in its nucleus. Tritium must be made in a chain-reacting pile by a reaction that costs one free neutron for every atom of tritium produced. There are plenty of free neutrons in a pile, but they originate in fissioning atoms of uranium-235 and are normally used to form plutonium (for atom bombs) out of nonfissionable U-238. Each neutron that is used to form an atom of tritium means less plutonium...
Deuterium (heavy hydrogen) may be used as a convenient source of reactive neutrons and protons. Another ingredient will probably be lithium, which has three protons and four neutrons in its nucleus. When joined by a proton, lithium turns into two helium nuclei. Lithium 6 (an isotope of lithium with three protons and three neutrons) may be used too. It combines with tritium to give two helium nuclei plus a free neutron...