Word: rodding
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...that morning of Dec. 2, 1942, Physicist George Weil stood ready to start withdrawing the final control rod...
which was marked to show how many feet and inches of the rod remained within the pile. "Pull it to 13 feet, George," Fermi said calmly, watching the meters set up to measure the neutron emission inside the pile. As Weil withdrew the rod, the meters clicked faster and faster. Fermi did some calculating with the little slide rule he always carried with him. "This is not it," he said. The rate of radiation leveled off as neutron emission from uranium and neutron absorption by cadmium came into equilibrium...
...Bottle of Chianti. Several times that morning, Fermi told Weil to pull the control rod out a little farther, six inches or a foot. Each time the radiation increased, only to level off again-still too much control rod. After lunch, Fermi ordered the rod withdrawn another foot. Again the radiation leveled off. Then another six inches. Still not enough. "Pull it out another foot," Fermi called. It was precisely...
...measures bill no less momentous than the Act of 1824 that abolished Queen Anne's wine gallon (231 cu. in.) and the ale gallon (282) in favor of the present imperial gallon (277.4). The government bill abolishes entirely the linear measurement, beloved of school textbooks, known as rod, pole or perch, a 5 ½yd. unit based originally on the combined length of the left feet of 16 men. The government also lengthens the yard* and lightens the pound to conform to international standards, and in five years it will also abolish pennyweight, scruple and drachm...
While the reforms were most loudly welcomed by rod-spared schoolchildren, they also stirred joy in English pubs, where a "single" Scotch or gin is usually one-sixth of a gill-barely enough, Britons grumble, to wet the glass. Henceforth, pubs will be allowed to dispense one-sixth, one-fifth or one-fourth of a gill.* But will be forced to display a sign saying clearly which measure they use. The greatest spur to thoroughgoing reform will undoubtedly be British membership in the European Common Market. In time, Englishmen may even order their mild-and-bitter by the liter...