Word: volts
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...electron-hurling machine, weightiest contribution to atomic physics since the cyclotron was invented in 1931, was unveiled before science and the world last week. It can hurl electrons-particles of negative electricity-at nearly the speed of light. It can produce 20,000,000-volt X-rays, some ten times more than the world's biggest X-ray machine. It can out-radiate all the extracted radium supplies on earth-and its further abilities have scarcely been explored. While U.S. scientists speculated upon the discoveries the device might lead to, they welcomed to their front ranks its brilliant young...
...betatron," explains Inventor Kerst, "is a doughnut-shaped glass vacuum tube between the poles of a large electromagnet" (see cut). Inside the tube, a hot filament gives off electrons. Magnetically guided, each electron circles about the tube 400,000 times, accelerated at each rotation by small 70-volt kicks whose cumulative push gives the particle an energy of 20,000,000 volts within a fraction of a second. These fiercely energized electrons are then either: 1) Released continuously from the tube as a beam of beta rays-whence the betatron's name-which are one of the three types...
Hitherto X-rays have been produced by stepping up an ordinary 110-volt current to perhaps 1,000,000 volts in a transformer, then jumping it through a straight vacuum tube at a target from which X-rays are emitted. Now, in effect, the betatron combines transformer and vacuum tube. Instead of circling round & round a magnet in a coil of wire, as in a transformer, the electrons whirl through the empty space inside the doughnut-shaped vacuum while their voltage increases...
...plane he was demonstrating for Charles Lindbergh, during the latter's visit to Germany in 1936, fell apart in the air. Udet parachuted to safety. In an Alpine circuit race he fouled his propeller in a 30,000-volt trolley wire. The plane lost its tail and Udet got a scratch...
Industrial use of 1,000,000-volt machines had to wait until they became compact and light (1,500 lb.) enough to be slung easily from a crane and aimed this way & that upon intricate pieces of machinery. The new giants have two great industrial advantages: 1) they can see through thicker metals, 2) they can do the work of smaller machines in less time...