Word: reactional
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...crowded into a basketball arena in Dallas. When he was questioned, it became clear that his paper was sketchy because his technique was sketchy: he and Fleischmann had failed to do elementary control tests before going public. But it was fusion, Pons insisted, not just an unusual chemical reaction, as others had suggested. A Soviet group chimed in that day to say it had found its own neutrons. Indian scientists said the same. And on April 13, two graduate students at the University of Washington announced that they had recorded no neutrons or heat, but did detect other fusion...
Most decisive was the reaction of the security forces to Deng's directive. The chief of Beijing's Public Security Bureau reportedly tried to step down rather than suppress the demonstration. Finally, cooler heads prevailed, and a last-minute decision was made to greet the marchers with unarmed policemen...
...toiling in virtual anonymity. But B. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann came last week to Washington as heroes, visionaries and scientific superstars. With a mob of reporters following along, the thermodynamic duo marched onto Capitol Hill to tell Congress how their simple tabletop experiment had generated fusion, the nuclear reaction that powers the sun. Displaying slides filled with complex equations, wielding electronic pointers and pulling a mockup of their apparatus from a plastic shopping bag, the bespectacled researchers mesmerized the members of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology with an account of how their device produced more energy...
...fusion is probably an illusion. More and more scientists were openly scoffing at the chemists' claim that they had caused deuterium ions, which are commonly found in seawater, to fuse to form helium, liberating large amounts of heat. Physicists have never been able to achieve such a sustained reaction, even briefly, without subjecting deuterium to the kind of extreme temperature and pressure found inside...
...first experiments did not do much. But one night in 1985, an electrochemical cell being used by the two scientists melted down. "That," says Pons, "told us we had much more energy than could be attributed to a chemical reaction." After the accident, Pons called Fleischmann, who had returned to England. Fleischmann responded to the momentous news with an admonition: "We'd better not talk on the phone." Pons says they ultimately spent about $100,000 of their own money to pursue what they were convinced was fusion...