Word: trillionth
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Neutrons have about the same mass as the heart of a hydrogen atom, but they are much smaller. Dr. George Braxton Pegram and his associates at Columbia have set the neutron diameter at one ten-trillionth of an inch. Unlike electrons, positrons, protons and deuterons, neutrons have no electric charge. Hence they make splendid projectiles for bombardment since they are not repelled by the positive charges on the atomic nuclei. Alpha particles knock neutrons in quantity out of beryllium and other light elements at speeds up to 30,000 miles per second. When the neutron hits a nucleus it either...
...atoms, are not deflected until they collide squarely with a nucleus. Nevertheless their mass (about 1,800 times that of an electron) has been established within fairly precise limits. And last week three Columbia physicists announced the size of the neutron as slightly less than .0000000000001 (one ten-trillionth) of an inch...
presence of one one-trillionth of a grain of timothy, golden rod, or ragweed pollen." On this happy note, with his tongue reaching for his cheek, Professor Pitkin winds up his 540-page introduction with the words: "We are now ready to begin the history of human stupidity." He cannot be said to have left his subject where he found...
...helium atoms) as they explode from radium at a speed of 12,000 mi. per sec., and ten microseconds apart. (A microsecond is one-millionth of a second.) Dr. Kenneth T. Bainbridge of Bartol Laboratories, Philadelphia, again described his two-ton mass-spectrograph which is sensitive to one-trillionth of a trillionth of an ounce (TIME, Feb. 22), which delicately indicated that the average atomic weight of the isotopes of tellurium is (new observation) 127.47 instead of 127.5. Dr. Bainbridge is proud that his machine cost him only $2,000 to build. President Compton of M. I. T. announced...
...theatre was a huge mass-spectrograph; his projectiles, atoms. What earned him scientific plaudits rather than police treatment was the fact that his instrument was bigger than anything that had previously been developed in the U. S., could therefore compute relative weights which differed by less than one-trillionth of one-trillionth of an ounce...