Word: radon
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Some weeks ago Dr. Otto Hahn of Berlin's Kaiser Wilhelm Institute donned his work clothes, walked into his laboratory to perform a physical experiment. With a stream of neutrons (obtainable by subjecting a pinch of beryllium to the emanations of the radioactive gas radon) he bombarded a bit of uranium. While the routine little experiment proceeded all was peace and quiet in the laboratory. There was no crash of thunder, no flash of cataclysmic lightning...
...powerful wave mathematics developed by Germany's Erwin Schrodinger, Drs. George Braxton Pegram, John R. Dunning and Isidor Isaac Rabi had to lead their particles like circus animals through a complex series of hoops & hurdles. Beryllium powder was placed in a glass tube containing the radioactive gas radon. Alpha particles from the radon knocked neutrons out of the beryllium. First hurdle was a metal ring which deflected part of the neutron beam toward a cylindrical detection chamber less than an inch across, a half-inch deep. The chamber's door was guarded by a paraffin screen from which...