Word: vapor
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When ozone is bubbled through a dilute pyrogallol solution, the liquid glows brightly though no heat is evolved. Not true is the common saying that scientists are still searching for "cold light." Fluorescent and vapor-discharge lamps (e.g., neon, sodium) are true "cold lights" in that heat is not what makes them shine...
When fluorescent lighting showed commercial possibilities several years ago, Hygrade researchers went quickly to work. Mercury vapor inside fluorescent lamps is ionized by an electric discharge between electrodes at each end, produces short ultraviolet rays which must then be converted by a fluorescent powder to visible light. In February Hygrade's chief research engineer, James L. Cox, got an award from N. A. M. for a new method of coating the lamps with a porous powder so that longer rays of the visible range are efficiently radiated. Costly to install, fluorescents waste only 75% of their energy in heat...
...Coffee is vacuum-packed by some canners because the oxygen in the air diminishes freshness and flavor. It occurred to Engineer Jay Erwin Tone of Des Moines that freshness and flavor might be even better preserved if, after air was pumped from the can, it was replaced by vapor from fresh-ground coffee. After several years of puttering, he invented a big machine which fills 3,000 coffee cans an hour with such vapor...
With the spies came the bombs, sprayed by wave after wave of Soviet planes. In the clear cold air they flew high, trailing a thin line of vapor from their exhausts, dropping clusters of small bombs that burst into flames when they hit. Systematically the Russians went after every centre of communications: railways, telegraph and telephone centres, roadheads, bridges, factories. (They got a ski factory and the Finns were short of skis.) This meant that civilians had to bear the brunt of the bombings. Typical of the destruction wrought was the case of Sortavala, vital railway junction on the north...
Carburization turns a soft iron wire into steel in one minute. The wire is heated in a hydrogen atmosphere to prevent oxidation. The hydrogen, bubbling through alcohol, picks up alcohol vapor. This vapor contains carbon, which inter acts with the hot iron to make it steel. The Westinghouse people devised this exhibit to show the new importance of controlled atmospheres in hardening commercial steel parts...