Word: beryllium
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...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...
...Princeton University campus. Physics Professor Rudolf Walter Ladenburg, 53, and Research Associate Cletus Clinton Van Voorhis, 50, were so interested in their atom-smashing experiments that they had come back to the physics laboratory to work after dinner. For bullets they used neutrons. The neutrons were knocked out of beryllium by alpha particles from radium. The beryllium and 200 milligrams of radium sulphate, worth $4,000, were in a metal tube. One of the scientists started to solder a loose cap on the tube over a flame. The cap blew off. Some of the radium compound spurted into the faces...
...young daughter and her brilliant young son-in-law were showing themselves to be able and devoted scientists. In the Curie Laboratory of Paris' Institut du Radium Irène Curie-Joliot and Jean Frederic Joliot were shooting alpha particles (nuclei of helium atoms) at the lightweight element beryllium. Strange rays hopped out of the beryllium. Fed into paraffin, the rays knocked out protons (hydrogen nuclei) at dizzy speeds of one-tenth the velocity of light. What were the strange rays...
Before they could reach that conclusion even with the powerful wave mathematics developed by Germany's Erwin Schrodinger, Drs. George Braxton Pegram, John R. Dunning and Isidor Isaac Rabi had to lead their particles like circus animals through a complex series of hoops & hurdles. Beryllium powder was placed in a glass tube containing the radioactive gas radon. Alpha particles from the radon knocked neutrons out of the beryllium. First hurdle was a metal ring which deflected part of the neutron beam toward a cylindrical detection chamber less than an inch across, a half-inch deep. The chamber...