Word: beryllium
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...military metallurgy, beryllium is rated a new wonder metal. The element beryllium was discovered by a Frenchman in 1797, but during World War I and for years afterward there was no known use for it; in 1923 its price was $5,000 per pound. But beryllium ores are scattered widely over the world and last week the price of the metal was down to about $11. Not quite twice as heavy as water, beryllium is one of the lightest of all metals. It is a third lighter than aluminum. Chemically wedded to copper or nickel, it makes an extremely hard...
Some weeks ago Dr. Otto Hahn of Berlin's Kaiser Wilhelm Institute donned his work clothes, walked into his laboratory to perform a physical experiment. With a stream of neutrons (obtainable by subjecting a pinch of beryllium to the emanations of the radioactive gas radon) he bombarded a bit of uranium. While the routine little experiment proceeded all was peace and quiet in the laboratory. There was no crash of thunder, no flash of cataclysmic lightning...
...cancer of human beings. The cyclotron whirls ions of heavy hydrogen (deuterons) between the poles of a huge electromagnet, then hurls them into a drumlike vacuum chamber. When they are charged with nearly eight million volts of energy, the ions are shot against a target of light metal, usually beryllium. The bullets knock out streams of neutrons, tiny particles about the same weight as protons but carrying no electric charge...
...newest set-up at Berkeley, which has been operating for two months and which Dr. Lawrence described this week in Rochester, has a vacuum tank 37 in. across, hurls deuterons at 7,800,000 volts. If these are directed into a beryllium target, the beryllium belches out at least one trillion neutrons per second, possibly ten trillion...
...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 bounces off, transforming the atom instantly into another element, or is captured, producing a swollen, unstable atom which spits out the awkward excess for seconds, hours, sometimes days...