Word: uranium
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Splitting an atom of uranium...
...dedication ceremonies atop Mt. Locke last week more than a dozen astronomical bigwigs were on hand, including five from foreign countries. One of the things they talked about was tapping atomic energy as a source of power, a possibility brighter now than ever before, as a result of splitting uranium atoms with neutrons (TIME, Feb. 6; March...
This discovery has already brought into play new words, familiar in other fields of science but not so in atomic physics. The splitting of the uranium nucleus is described as a "fission," which, in biology, means division of an organism into two or more parts. The big nucleus has been compared to a "droplet." When a neutron of the right energy strikes it, the new energy is shared by all the components of the nucleus so that the "surface tension" fails to hold it together. Therefore it splits...
...Hahn calls himself a radiologist and his previous record includes discovery of several radioactive elements. Some years ago he lectured at Cornell, is remembered there as an "outstanding scientist"-also as a good lecturer, an amiable and energetic man. Last week the "fission" of the uranium atom definitely looked like a find of Nobel Prize calibre. But present German law forbids Germans to accept Nobel Prizes. Meanwhile, physicists have unofficially distributed some of the credit to Liese Meitner in Stockholm (a woman physicist) and R. Frisch of Copenhagen, who presented a fine interpretation of what happened when the uranium atom...
Since the first explosion reverberated through the world's laboratories, the fission of thorium, as well as uranium, has been demonstrated. Atom-wranglers at Columbia University have shown that, under various conditions, the fission of uranium yields krypton, strontium, iodine, xenon, tellurium as disintegration products. The flood of reports made it appear that atomic physicists are off on the biggest big-game hunt since the discovery of artificial radioactivity was announced...