Word: nuclei
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1960
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...nuclear fusion into helium and heavier elements. With the hydrogen gone, the star contracts. As its mass concentrates into a smaller volume, its gravitational field increases in power, eventually growing strong enough to compress the material near the star's center into "degenerate" matter whose electrons and nuclei have been pushed close together...
...like a circular ridge of earth half a mile in circumference. Under the ridge is a circle of electromagnets weighing 4,000 tons, and inside the magnets runs a ring-shaped metal tube 7 in. wide and 3 in. high, which is pumped free of air. Bursts of protons (nuclei of hydrogen atoms) are shot into the tube by a smaller accelerator, and the magnets guide them around its half-mile circuit. Entering with 50 Mev (million electron-volts) of energy, the protons are grabbed by quickly shifting electrical forces and accelerated to their fantastic speeds...
...nuclei of reproductive cells are mere blobs of protoplasm, apparently much alike. But each of them contains a genetic "instruction code" that tells it how to develop into a particular sort of creature, ranging from a bacterium to a man. In the case of higher animals, the cell's instructions are carried by long, coiled-up molecules of DXA (deoxyribonucleic acid). In the instance of some viruses, which are the simplest of organisms, the code is found in RNA (ribonucleic acid), which is less complicated...
...Shaped Fireball. The success cautiously announced by Dr. Tuck was achieved by Scylla, a cylindrical chamber about 30 inches long in which deuterium is squeezed by a sudden magnetic shock. The squeeze produces an egg-shaped fireball about 0.8 in. long containing five times 1016 (50 million billion) deuterium nuclei at a temperature of 13,000,000°C. It lasts about 0.9 millionth of a second, and spits out about io million neutrons...
...sure that the Scylla neutrons came from genuine fusion of deuterium, but he points out that Scylla was never intended to be a practical source of thermonuclear energy. More promising for this purpose is Picket Fence, an apparatus that forms a cavity between strong magnetic fields. When deuterium nuclei are shot into the cavity, they sometimes stay there for 30 millionths of a second, a very long time in thermonuclear physics. Said Dr. Tuck: "For the first time I see in this device faint glimmerings of a possibility of making a thermonuclear reactor...