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Atomic Energy: HOW WHV
Atomic Energy: HOW WHV
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ATOMIC
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THE HOW AND WHY WONDER BOOK OF
ATOM IC E N E R G Y -
Written by DONALD BARR
Assistant Dean, School of Engineering
Columbia University
Illustrated by GEORGE J. ZAFFO
Paul E. Blackwood
Specialist for Elementary Science
U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare
Washington, D. C.
5
shooting and slashing their way into the
Dawn in the Desert
islands that guarded Japan. For weeks
American planes had rained fire bombs Let us go back three weeks. It is a
on Japanese cities. Thus far, Fliroshima little before 3:00 o’clock in the morning
had been spared. Then a lone American on July 16, 1945. The rain is pouring
plane streaked over the city. It dropped down and the lightning is wildly stab
one bomb. The Atomic Age had begun. bing the clouds over a lonely corner of
Alamogordo Air Base in the New Mexi
co desert. It is not deserted tonight.
DEATH OF A CITY Men are scurrying through the dark
ness. There are soldiers, some of them
There was a vast flash of fire, brighter Wearing generals’ stars. There are quiet
than the sun, and hotter. There was a men in business suits, whom the others
great shuddering of the earth and a address respectfully as “Professor.” Be
great roar and a scorching wind. There tween the crashes of thunder, they talk
was a cloud shaped like a huge mush in little groups nervously. They go into
room, silently standing above the ruins. a shed to examine some wires and in
There was nothing left of the center of struments and drive away. Some go to
Hiroshima except charred, dusty rub another blockhouse a few miles away.
bish from which deadly invisible rays Some drive six miles through the storm
were streaming. There were 78,150
people known to be dead and 13,983
people missing. From one bomb!
The President of the United States,
Harry S. Truman, broadcast a warning
to Japan. This, he said, was a new kind
of bomb, a bomb which used the forces
that made the sun hot, and America
had more of these bombs. The President
was slightly wrong in his science. But
that did not matter. The Japanese knew
that there was a new force in the world,
and soon they surrendered.
On that August day, in laboratories
all over the United States, scientists
shivered and looked grim. That was not
the way they had wanted the Atomic
Age to begin.
6
and climb a tall steel tower to peer at praying. In one shed, when zero minus
a bulky, strange device nestling there two is called, everyone lies on the floor,
among more wires and instruments. face down, with his feet pointing to the
This is the device which is to be tested tower several miles away. In the other
— an atomic device. It is known simply shed, the civilian scientist in charge of
as “Fat Man.” The men keep looking the project, Dr. J. Robert Oppen-
at the sky. heimer, is hardly breathing. He holds
onto a post to steady himself. At zero
minus forty-five seconds, the automatic
timers click on. The red hand glides
ZERO HOUR
around the clock face. Then the an
At 3:30 there is a decision. Fat Man nouncer yells, “Now!”
will be tested. At 4:00 o’clock the rain A blazing flash from the tower lights
stops, but the clouds are thick overhead. up the face of the desert and the moun
By 5:10, the men have all gathered in tains around it. There is an earsplitting
the blockhouses. A voice crackles from roar which goes on and on. A blast of
the loudspeakers: “Zero minus twenty air knocks down two men who have
minutes.” Men are rubbing suntan lo stayed outside one of the sheds. An
tion on their faces and arms. The talk enormous, many-colored cloud boils up
ing dies down. Some of the men are and up until it is eight miles tall. As it
rises, the storm-clouds seem to move
aside for it.
In the two sheds, the stiff faces have
eased into smiles. Everyone is shaking
everyone else’s hand. There are shouts
of laughter. A distinguished chemistry
professor from Massachusetts throws
his arms around Dr. Oppenheimer. “We
did it! We did it!”
Fat Man has passed the test. The first
atomic explosion on earth has just taken
place.
A Dangerous Game
Let us go back two and a half years.
It is mid-morning in Chicago, Decem
ber 2, 1942. For a long time the Uni
versity of Chicago has not played any
football in its stadium, Stagg Field. It
is a pity to waste the place. Under the
7
grandstands there are rooms and courts tons of it — is here, buried in the big
for playing other games, and something black pile under the seats at the football
is certainly going on in a squash court field. Also buried in the pile are 14,500
under the West Stands. But this is not lumps of other stuff that has uranium
squash, which is played with a rubber in it.
ball and rackets. This game is played Other holes have been drilled through
with balls and rackets too small to see the stacked graphite bricks. Lying in
— hundreds of millions of them. The these are long rods of another rare
players can get hurt. metal, called cadmium. What the
Above one end of the court is a bal strange uranium can do, the strange
cony. Toward the other end, there is cadmium can stop — the players hope.
a monstrous black pile of something. For this game has never been played
It is strange-looking stuff, yet it some before, not since the creation of the
how seems familiar. It is not metal, yet earth. As the cadmium rods are pulled
it is shiny, even a little greasy-looking. out of the pile, millions of tiny “balls”
Where have we seen it before? In a — much too small to see, even with a
pencil. microscope — will shoot out of the
The “lead” in a pencil is not lead uranium lumps. They will go right
at all, but a form of carbon called through the graphite and hit nearby
graphite. Carbon comes in many forms, uranium lumps, knocking more tiny
including coal and diamonds, but balls out of them. These, too, will begin
graphite is best for playing the atomic flying around and knocking more balls
game. It can be sawed into neat shapes into the game. And the uranium and
like wood. It can be made very pure. graphite will get hotter and hotter and
It is not rare. hotter, like a furnace.
This pile is made of neatly sawed N ow if the players are wrong, either
bricks, stacked crisscross. It is very pure of two things might happen. One is —
— or the players in the squash court nothing. There may not be enough
hope it is — because if it isn’t, some balls, or they may not shoot through the
thing might go terribly wrong. And graphite. Three years of hard work and
there are 1,350 tons of graphite in the millions and millions of dollars would
court, piled 30 feet wide, 32 feet long, be wasted. The other thing that might
I W i feet high. Some of the bricks in happen is — an explosion. There may
the middle of the stack have holes be too many balls. The “furnace” may
drilled in them. In these holes are lumps get too hot. And if it does, it could blow
of a strange, rare metal called uranium. up not only the players and the squash
Almost all the urarfium metal in the court and the football field, but Chi
United States o f America — fifty-two cago, Illinois.
8
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Fermi is sure it will not go wrong, pulls the rod out a little more. Then a
and he is a world-famous physicist. He pause. Check the instruments. Check
has checked his plans and calculations the calculations. A little more. Check.
over and over again. He has checked A little more. Inch by inch.
them this morning. He does not think It is lunchtime. Professor Fermi and
he will be like Mrs. Murphy’s cow, his team go out to eaf. After lunch, they
which kicked over a lantern and started inch the last cadmium rod out of the
the Great Chicago Fire. pile. At 3:25 p . m . the instruments have
news. The pile has “gone critical” — it
is hot — it is working.
THE GAME STARTS Will it go too far, get too hot, ex
plode? The clocks tick away the min
He gives the signal. A cadmium rod utes. Still safe. At 3 :53 p . m ., Fermi tells
is pulled out. Another. All but one. The the player with the rods to put them
scorekeeper reports that the game is back. The game is over.
under way inside the great black heap. It is won. Man has built an atomic
The player takes the last cadmium furnace. It can make electricity to light
rod and slowly pulls it out one foot. The houses and run factories. It can make
scorekeeper’s instruments click out the medicine to cure diseases. And it can
news — the pile is warming. It steadies, make terrible explosives capable of kill
as Fermi’s calculations said it would, ing thousands of people in a second.
before it gets really hot. The player One of the players reaches into his
Science has learned to use the energy o f the atom fo r homes, factories, submarines, surface ships and medicine.
luggage and pulls out a bottle of Italian a roundabout way, from Berlin, Ger
red wine. Fermi sends for paper cups. many.
The members of the team hold their Things are bad in Berlin. The mad
cups up — “Here’s to the Atomic Age!” man Hitler is running Germany and
Austria, and he is having thousands of
people beaten or shot because he
A Little Extra W o rk doesn’t like their religion or their politi
cal beliefs or because they oppose the
Let us go back four years. It is the inhuman methods of the Nazis. Many
evening of January 25, 1939, a cold, Germans and Austrians are escaping to
blowy evening in New York City. In a other countries. One Austrian woman,
small, messy room in a basement at Dr. Lise Meitner, who is now in Den
Columbia University, three men are mark, is an important physicist.
working late.
For young Professor Dunning, it has
been a busy day, and there is a lot more LETTER FROM BERLIN
to do. He had lunch today with his
friend Professor Fermi, who told him A few weeks ago she got a letter from
some exciting news. The news came in Otto Hahn, a chemist who has stayed
in Germany. He said he had been ex
Atomic power can also perimenting with some uranium and
be used destructively.
discovered a strange thing — some of it
had turned into another metal entirely.
He hardly dared think what that meant.
As soon as she read this, Dr. Meitner
saw what it meant. She talked it over
with friends in Denmark. One was Niels
Bohr, who is the world’s greatest expert
on atoms. And Bohr was just leaving
for a visit to America.
A few days ago he arrived and told
some American scientists he was going
to give a report on this new discovery
to a meeting in Washington, tomorrow,
January 26. The news has been spread
ing fast. Fermi talked it over with Dun
ning at lunch today, and then left for
Washington to attend .the meeting.
Young John Dunning, too, sees what
it means. He sees that if you really do
to uranium what Otto Hahn says he did
to uranium, little bits of stuff will shoot
11
out of it — little balls too small to see, change the uranium. It will detect any
even with a microscope. And there will flying bits of stuff or sparks of energy.
be sparks or flashes of energy — too And each time anything is detected, it
small to see or feel. So all afternoon he will send an electric current into the
has been trying to get equipment set up thing that looks like a. toy television set.
for a wonderful experiment. He is going Two scientists who are working with
to do what the German chemist did, him have come. Everything is ready.
and he is going to prove that the little Dunning turns a switch on the case with
bits of stuff really do fly off, and he is the window. A glowing green line ap
going to measure the energy. . . . pears across it. He switches on the rest
of the equipment. The green line be
comes wiggly, almost furry. And then
A SOUND NOBODY EVER HEARD it happens.
A long green streak shoots up from
Dunning has clever hands. He has a the furry line. Blip! The signal. A sec
way with gadgets. Here are some ond later, another. Blip! Blip-blip!
chunks of lead like children’s blocks, Blip! Blip-blip-blip . . .
and some chemicals and pipe and a lot The three men are looking at atomic
of wire and some radio tubes and a energy.
12
times, and after you concentrate on it
for a few minutes it begins to look a
little bit “wrong.” The longer you study
the letters in it, the stranger it becomes,
until you almost believe it is misspelled.
(Try it for three minutes with the word
ENERGY. . . . Now: is that a real
Mass is the amount o f matter in a thing — meat, fo r
word?) It is the same way with the exam ple. O ne w ay to measure mass is with a scale.
science of physics. As we study the
whole page of the universe, the compli But that's not always easy. Answer: Because the a ir also
The a ir above this scale has gets underneath the scale
cated things become wonderfully sim a n d p u s h e s u p w a r d , ju s t
one ton o f mass. W h y doesn't
ple. But when we concentrate on the w hat you see here take place? like w ater under a row boat.
simple words on the page of the uni
verse, they become very complicated
and unfamiliar.
14
hard and long, using the marvelous elec
tronic and magnetic eyes that science
has invented, it begins to look very
strange. It does look almost like a queer
kind of thickened-up or frozen energy.
inside. And air actually weighs quite a
lot. For a blimp, carrying crew and en We still do not know very clearly what
gines and fuel, floats in the sky by energy is. But we know what
W hat is
weighing a little less than air, just as a it does. It does work. Tech
energy?
submarine floats in the sea by weighing nically, we say that work is
a little less than water. So even very the applying of a force over a distance.
thinned-out matter has mass. More simply, it is the use of energy to
move things or to change things. Work
But the light by which you are reading may be moving pieces of matter around
this book is something — lifting a girder up the skeleton of a
How can we
else. It does not seem skyscraper, drilling a hole in the earth,
tell matter
to weigh anything. hammering a nail, weaving cloth. Work
from energy?
You can shine a flash may be changing the insides of matter
light beam into a balloon and the bal — refining iron ore into iron metal,
loon will not fill. If you blow sideways changing iron to steel in an open-hearth
against the beam, it will not shift. Light furnace, using derivatives of coal, air
does not seem to have any mass. It is and water to make material called nylon.
not thinned-out matter, but energy. Work may be magnetizing and demag
Yet, when we stare at matter very netizing something, as happens thou-
15
Energy is stored in matter. Coal is
black and cold, but it stores light
and heat from the sunlight o f over
three hundred m illion years ago.
D ro w n e d in sw am ps and
Energy can be changed to other forms. Fire (heat energy) boils w ater. Steam drives an engine which turns a
wheel (mechanical energy), which drives a dynamo (electrical energy), which lights a lamp (light energy).
17
The scientists of 1900 were also sure of energy out into space each year. So
we could never destroy any energy. We in 1900, physicists had the idea that we
could only lose it. can never change the amount of energy
in the universe, and they were so sure
Energy is always leaking away and tak of this that they called it a scientific law
ing forms in which we — the Law of the Conservation of En
Do we burn „ ^ , . ,
_ cannot catch it and use ergy. Now we know it is only half a law.
up energy?
it. The fire under your
boiler heats other things besides the wa- Suppose you were to hold a lighted
match to the
W hat happens when .
. „ o
w e burn matter?
corn er o f a
sta ck o f p a
per. The paper would catch fire and the
bright hot flames would eat across the
sheets until the paper was burned up
Some heat-energy and some light-energy
would be given off, while one half an
ounce of solid matter would seem to
vanish. A bit of fluffy ash and a floating
Fire under a boiler heats other things besides w ater. cloud of smoke would apparently be all
that was left.
ter in the boiler. The steam seeps out Wouldn’t you have changed that mat
around the piston. The air around the ter into energy then? Doesn’t that mean
hot cylinder of the steam engine warms matter and energy are really forms of
up and blows away. The dynamo heats the same thing after all?
up from friction, and this energy is also
carried away by the air. Your electric In 1900, you could not have found a
wires get warm. The light bulb gives off single physicist who
Can we change w o u ld haye a„ .
heat as well as light, and that, too, is
matter into , „
carried away. So as you go on convert energy? S w e re d ^ to
ing energy from one form to another, th o se q u estio n s.
you are, so to speak, cooking the wind. Now you could not find a physicist who
At last, this escaped energy radiates off, would answer with a straight “no.” This
like the sun’s rays, into the endless cold is the most important change of mind
of outer space. in human history. It is changing our
lives — and maybe our deaths.
But it still exists somewhere out there. So we should think carefully about
It is not destroyed. such an experiment with a stack of pa
Where does used
The human race per. To bum it scientifically you would
energy go to?
sends about 90,- have to bum it inside a can. You would
000,000,000,000,000,000 foot-pounds have to use a big can, so as to hold all
18
the air you needed for the fire. You show it. But you would have done it.
would have to seal it up tight, so that How do we know?
absolutely no matter could get in or out.
You would have to place the can on a In the year 1905, a young German-bom
scale while the paper burned and the sc ie n tis t w as
When did physicists , . .
can cooled off. And your scale would * a. • • j , working in the
change their mind? c
not show any change in weight. S w iss P a ten t
In 1900, we all would have agreed Office, checking other people’s inven
that the ash and smoke and gases from tions. And he wrote a paper about what
the flame weighed exactly what the pa he called his Theory of Relativity. He
per and air weighed to begin with. For hoped it would explain some facts about
we all thought then that there was an light and about the stars which had been
other law of nature, called the Law. of mystifying physicists and astronomers
the Conservation of Mass, which said for years. It did. It did something else,
that no matter is ever added to the uni too. In this paper, Albert Einstein, one
verse or taken away from it. Well, we of the great scientific minds of all time,
know now that there actually would be wrote a sentence which has become the
a tiny loss of weight in that can. You most famous sentence of the twentieth
could not have converted one half an century. Einstein did not write his sen
ounce of matter into energy. But you tence in words. He wrote it in algebra,
would have converted one ten-billionth the language of mathematics that uses
of an ounce of matter into energy. N o letters of the alphabet to stand for num
scale in the world is good enough to bers: E = me2.
19
ALBERT EINSTEIN
20
tidy new theory which helped them cal speed of light multiplied by itself. It
culate things they could not measure gives us a gigantic number, 34,596,-
with instruments and which explained 000,000. If we do the arithmetic using
various odd facts they had never under this number, we find that from very
stood before. Most of them paid no little mass we get an astonishing amount
attention to one letter in the famous of energy. When we burn a pound of,
equation. That was the letter c. coal in the ordinary way, we might get
10 million foot-pounds of energy. This
Now, in Einstein’s theory, c stands for is good. But if we could convert the
speed of lig h t. whole pound of mass into energy, then
How much energy L ig h t trav els at by Einstein’s formula we would get 30
can w e get
186,000 miles per million billion foot-pounds of energy.
from matter?
second. The ex This is better.
pression c2 ( “c squared” ) means the If only we know how. . .
ticles there were. endlessly. Others said atoms were the smallest things.
21
The second group was nearer to the An atom — even an atom of iron in the
truth, of course. Matter usually does steel arm o r-p late of a
Are atoms
consist of atoms. But they were wrong solid?
warship, or an atom of
in thinking there was nothing smaller carbon in a diamond —
than an atom. And they certainly picked is mostly empty space. The big old solid
the wrong name for their fundamental world around us is not solid at all. It is
particle. The atom can be cut. made of tiny spots of matter hanging or
whirling quite far apart in open space.
For 2,200 years, no one had anything Then why, if you pound your fist on
new or important to say the table, doesn’t your hand go into the
. . . on the subject. Then in table-top? Because your hand, too, is
elements? ^ ^ school.
empty space, and because strong elec
teacher named John Dalton began to trical forces between the whirling spots
study atoms seriously. He figured out hold them away from each other. Those
that some things are'made up of only forces, jostling the atoms in your flesh,
one kind of atom. These are pure ele are what you feel as the bang of your
ments. Gold and mercury and oxygen hand on the table.
are elements. Other things are made of We are sure of this although no one
two, three or even more different kinds has ever actually seen an atom. Atoms
of atoms. These are mixtures and com are too small to see — 100 million of
pounds. In mixtures the different ele them in a row would take up less than
ments are simply jumbled together. Air an inch.
is a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen and
other gases. In compounds, atoms of
different kinds are actually linked to
gether in little groups. Water is a com
pound in which each oxygen atom is
linked up with two hydrogen atoms in
a tiny package called a water molecule.
22
Most o f the atomic bul
lets go through the
" s o li d ” m e ta l — this
shows that atoms are
m o stly e m p ty space.
23
Around the ato m ’s nucleus, which is composed o f
protons and neutrons, spin particles called electrons.
through easily because the gold atoms Scientists have put together all the facts
were not solid stuff, but open space. they have gathered about
w h a t is tjie atom an(j they have
And in the middle of each atom there
was a lump of mass, off which a bullet '"Slde 0 a kind of picture of it in
t e atom. mjncjs. I t looks
sometimes bounced. Rutherford de
cided to call this lump the nucleus of something like a picture of our solar
the atom, from the Latin name for the system. In the middle of the solar sys
pit in a piece of fruit. tem the huge sun hangs in empty space.
Around it, one inside the other, in paths
Now we have hundreds of different de or “orbits” like circles pulled out of
vices for studying atoms, shape, spin the planets, like our earth
How do ran g in g from reg u la r and Mars and Saturn.
we look X-ray machines to fantas- In the middle of an atom, hanging in
at atoms? . . . c ,
empty space, is the nucleus. Around it,
tic jungles of wires and
magnets and vacuum tubes called by in orbits like circles pulled out of shape,
such names as cyclotron and bevatron. spin other tiny particles.
One great synchrotron near New York
City uses four thousand tons of magnets The nucleus is so small it is hard even
and a huge doughnut of metal a half to th in k ab o u t how
How big is smajj it is T h e atom -t_
mile around. With these huge machines, the nucleus? ,
we can glimpse a little of what is going self is small—there are
on in the tiny universe of the atom. 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms
24
j
sand and rock, down and down to the
core of the world.
25
strong as the proton’s, but the opposite the electrons makes them keep trying
kind. The nucleus or “sun” of the atom, to fly off, away from the nucleus. Tie a
therefore, has a positive charge. The weight to a string and whirl it around
outer electrons or “planets” have a neg fast. You can feel the pull of the weight
ative charge. And the whole atom itself trying to fly away from your hand at
usually has no charge, because there are the center. You have to pull a little to
just as many protons in the nucleus as keep the weight in orbit. The electrical
electrons whirling around it, so the pull of the nucleus keeps the electrons
charges balance or cancel each other. in their paths, just as the pull of the
In the ordinary sodium atom, which is sun’s gravity keeps the earth in its orbit.
one of the atoms in salt, there are eleven And if things with the same charges
protons and twelve neutrons in the nu push each other away, why don’t the
cleus, and eleven electrons going around protons in the nucleus just go flying off
in orbit. from each other in all directions? That
By now, you will have thought of two one is hard. That is where atomic en
questions. One is easy and one is hard. ergy comes in.
26
atoms. Or sometimes one nucleus steals on* ■
■
■'" -nn
■
an electron from the other by a compli
cated magnetic trick, and this leaves the
thief-atom negatively charged and the
victim-atom positively charged, so they
stick together. This is how sodium and
chlorine combine to make ordinary salt.
It is as if the poor sodium atom kept
following the chlorine atom around in
the hope of getting its electron back.
This kind of linking is called a chemical
bond. t t c i
27
hard the push is between two protons vented for these measurements. A neu
rammed into a n u cle u s_____ 1_______ tron weighs 1.00894. So the whole he
2, 000, 000, 000,000
lium nucleus ought to weigh 4.03304.
of an inch apart. It takes a lot of energy
Instead, it weighs 4.00279. More than
to keep them side by side.
3
100 of a “mass unit” are missing. Using
This energy is called binding energy. Einstein’s E = me2 formula, we can
There is only one kind calculate how much energy this is —
W hat holds
of atom that does not what the scientists call 28 million “elec
the nucleus
need any binding en tron volts.” This is only a tiny fraction
together?
ergy. That is the atom of a foot-pound. But it is what keeps
of hydrogen gas, which only has one the universe from going whoosh! and
proton in its nucleus. Some of the hea turning into hydrogen. And it is what
vier kinds of atoms, with dozens of lets us turn matter into atomic energy.
protons in their nuclei, have to have
enormous amounts of binding energy. There are hundreds of different kinds of
Where do they get it? atoms in the uni-
How many kind, verse Q n e of
From mass. N o one knows how a
of atoms .
nucleus converts some of its own mass are there? sortm S them out ls
into energy in order to pull itself to to find out how
gether. But physicists all agree that this many protons they have in the nucleus.
is what happens. They can prove this All the atoms with one proton are hy
by very carefully measuring the mass drogen atoms. All with two are called
of an atom. Except for hydrogen, every helium. A ll with three, lithium. Four,
atom weighs just a little bit less than it
ought to.
28
Each kind of atom with a certain Each of these varieties is called an iso
number of protons is a different ele tope. The name was
W hat is an
ment. Until recently, we thought we taken from the Greek
isotope?
were saying all we had to say about any words meaning “the
atom if we just told what element it same place,” because isotopes of the
was. This, of course, is not so hard to same element always appear together
do, because the number of protons in in the chemists’ lists. And that is more
the nucleus is the same as the number important than it sounds. Since differ
of electrons out in orbit. These elec ent isotopes of the same element have
trons are what make the atoms link the same number of outer electrons,
chemically with other kinds of atoms or they are just the same in chemical link
refuse to link with them. So clever ings and unlinkings, so that chemists
chemists can always separate different have had a difficult time separating
elements. them. And since different isotopes of
the same element behave quite differ
But there is another kind of particle in ently when it comes to converting mass
the nucleus — the neu- and releasing nuclear energy, they must
Are all the tron Atoms with the be separated.
atoms of same number of protons We have some wonderful machines
an element
the same? m a? come m dlfferent
that actually sort out atoms by weight.
varieties, with different But they can only do it with a few atoms
numbers of neutrons. Even the lightest at a time.
and simplest element, hydrogen, comes
in three varieties. The usual kind has
one proton and no neutrons. Another,
quite rare, has a proton and a neutron.
It is sometimes called deuterium, but it
is just “heavy” hydrogen. A third kind,
called tritium, has to be made artifici
ally. It has one proton and two neu
trons, but it is still called hydrogen..
The usual hydrogen atom has 1 proton; deuterium has 1 proton, 1 neutron; tritium has 1 proton, 2 neutrons.
29
If you dig fo r buried treasure, the best thing you could possibly have is a map. The b inding energy curve, a
chart o f all the isotopes in the w orld, tells us where we can dig energy treasure out o f the nuclei o f atoms.
This, however, is enough to give us the tells us how much matter each kind of
fa c t s we ne e d to nucleus has mysteriously converted into
What is the make a great chart energy to keep itself together.
“ binding energy ;sot ^
This chart is why all the physicists
curve ? r
the binding energy were so excited when word spread that
curve. This chart tells us how much Hahn had turned the metal uranium
mass is “missing” from the nucleus of into the metal barium. For the chart is
each of the hundreds of isotopes we like a map of buried treasure. It tells us
have found or made. In other words, it where to dig for atomic energy.
30
It tells us that ordinary hydrogen has happen to be not quite equal. One might
no mass missing. have 36 protons in it — that would be
Did the big atoms „ td |s m (hat he.
the gas krypton. The other would have
nave the most ,. ,,
.. .. -hum , th e n ex t the remaining 56 protons — it would
heavier element, be barium. When you look at the chart
has quite a lot missing. A s we go up you see that barium and krypton have
through heavier and heavier kinds of more mass missing from them than ura
atoms, we find more and more mass nium. So suddenly, some mass has dis
missing for each particle in the nucleus appeared from the universe.
— up to a point. Up to a point — the And Einstein’s formula tells us what
element iron — and then, strangely has become of it. It has turned into
enough, we find less and less mass miss energy — into the tremendous force
ing for each particle in the heavier and with which the fragments of the uranium
heavier isotopes. fly apart.
When we get to the heaviest element
— the three isotopes of uranium — and Maybe it is a little hard to see why this
look up how much mass is missing from is energy we could
the 234, or 235, or 238 nuclear parti W hy doesn t use> doesn’t
binding energy mass
cles — we find that much less of it has
stay inside
been turned into energy than in such the atom? energY that the nu
middleweight elements as barium. cleus uses inside of
Think for a moment what this means. itself? A s a matter of fact, it was hard
for some physicists to be sure about
It means that if we split up a uranium this for a while. One answer is that
atom in to tw o binding energy does not work by brute
How can w e pieces, we will get force. It is something like the law that
get at some two smaller atoms says you can’t leave the country if you
binding energy?
— and something owe money to the government. The
else. There are 92 protons in the ura binding energy was energy that was
nium nucleus. Let us say the two pieces given off when the protons and neutrons
Protons and neutrons owe energy to the nucleus and they are supposed to stay there until the d ebt is paid.
31
were packed together, and ordinarily also: If we could mash a couple of
they cannot get away unless this energy, hydrogen nuclei together so as to form
this missing mass, is restored to the a helium nucleus, we would also wipe
nucleus. But even if you can’t leave out some matter. We would wipe out
legally, you could always break out. more matter, in fact, than by splitting
That is what happens when we split uranium. The energy would be prodi
the atom. gious. It would be like making a sun.
And that is why the chart means this For this is how the sun gets its energy.
Atom Smashing
In 1896, before we knew anything It slowly dawned on the scientists that
about E = me2 or what they were look-
Who discovered
what the atom is Do atoms mg at were atoms
radioactivity?
like, a French phys by"hS
ePn llv e s? b re a k in S ' This
icist named Henri Becquerel had a was a rather fright
slight accident in his laboratory. He ening idea, for two reasons. In the first
was testing some uranium compounds place, everyone at that time still thought
for something and discovered that they atoms were unbreakable, everlasting lit
gave off energy all by themselves. Soon tle pellets. This showed they were not.
after that Pierre and Marie Curie began And if pieces broke off an atom, what
to discover a whole group of new ele was left must be a different atom. That
ments that did the same thing. Madame meant elements were changing into
Curie named this strange behavior other elements. And if elements changed
radioactivity. into other elements when particles flew
For a long time, nobody was sure out, then atoms probably were not the
how radioactivity worked. Many experi particles that “could not be cut” (as
ments were done to find out just what their name said), but were bundles of
these mysterious “rays” were. Some of still smaller particles.
them at last turned out to be helium
atoms with their electrons knocked off. In the second place, the particles flew
Some turned out to be fast-moving elec out with great energy
W hy was
trons. Some turned out to be real rays and the rays were very
radioactivity
like very powerful X-rays. But what energetic, too. These
important?
were they doing ItF those atoms? And atom s seemed to be
why did they come out? making energy, which everybody in
32
The French physicist, Antoine Henri
Becquerel M l 85 2 -1 9 0 8 ), discovered
natural radioactivity, the invisible ra
diation o f uranium. W ith Pierre and
M arie Curie, he won the N obel Prize
in physics fo r his great discovery.
33
Let's pretend that you
were very rich and that
you had the very large
sum o f one m illion d o l
lars, even a fte r taxes.
FRANCIUM = 21 MINUTES
35
92 U
W hen a neutron bullet breaks a nucleus
NEUTR
in two, this splitting is known as fission.
NEUTRON The two pieces fly o ff with enormous
energy and become new, smaller nuclei.
Two new neutron bullets also shoot out.
GAMMA RAYS
mm
U-235. The new neutron makes it It is very nice to be able to smash atoms.
U-236. But for some reason, U-236 But it is not a useful
never stays together. It bursts into W hat is a thjng to d0 unless you get
“ chain . £ .
pieces. There are many ways it can reaction” ? m ° re 0Ut ° f 11
break., Suppose this time the biggest than you put into it. If
piece is a barium nucleus, with 56 pro you have to keep a building full of
tons and 88 neutrons. Another piece is equipment pumping neutrons into ura
krypton, with 36 protons and 54 neu nium to split a few nuclei, you are just
trons; And there are at least two extra playing.
neutrons by themselves. They are very Think back for a moment to the
important. And there is a lot of energy, paper-burning experiment. You touch a
which makes all the pieces shoot off at lighted match to the corner of one sheet.
terrific speeds. £v The paper catches fire. The flames
This is called fission. spread. You do not have to set each
36
If firecrackers are sepa
rate, you must set them
o ff one at a time. But
if they are attached to
gether, you only have to
light one, and each w ill
then set o ff the next one.
But now suppose — as we again think A chain reaction is something like the firecrackers
of the experiment that are attached to each other. W hen a uranium
W hat do we with the match and atom splits, it shoots out neutron bullets that split
need to make a nearby atoms, which split other atoms, and so forth.
the paper — that
chain reaction?
the paper is damp. In the same way, we need the right
Each bit of paper would need so much isotope of uranium for our atomic chain
heat to get it lit that the sections next reaction. It has to have a nucleus that
to it would have burned away before it splits easily and that shoots out loose
got started. The fire would go out. neutrons. The U-235 isotope is excel-
37
Scientists have figured out three ways to separate U -235 from U -238. In the electrom agnetic way, the uranium
is shot between the poles o f a magnet, which separates the heavier atoms from the lighter ones. In the
centrifuge way, the uranium is w hirled around and the heavy atoms swing to the outside. In the diffusion
way, more light atoms seep through the d ivider than heavy ones. Separation is necessary to make atomic fuel.
lent. But U-235 is hard to come by. No Yes — a man-made element called plu
matter where natural uranium comes tonium is excellent atomic fuel. Pluto
from — the Congo or Canada or Russia nium has 94 protons and 145 neutrons.
or in meteorites from outer space — it We make it by putting U-238 in an
always contains the same amounts of its atomic oven and “cooking” it in neu
three isotopes. And less than a hun trons, so to speak. When a neutron hits
dredth of it is U-235. the U-238 nucleus and stays there, it
gives us a new uranium isotope with 92
Another uranium isotope, U-234, only protons and 147 neutrons. That is just
sh ow s up in fa in t too many neutrons, and this is a very
W hat isotopes traces W e can hard, y
shaky nucleus. But it does not break up.
zsnL *ei1 * is t h e r e - M ° r e
than 99 per cent of
Instead it soon begins to break down.
One of the neutrons mysteriously turns
uranium is the heavy isotope, U-238, into a proton, arid an electron — of all
with 92 protons and 146 neutrons. Un things — suddenly shoots out of the
fortunately, it is like damp paper. The nucleus. Now we have a new element
neutrons crash into the U-238 nucleus called neptunium, with 93 protons and
— and stay there. This is not bad. It has 146 neutrons. But this nucleus is still
its uses. But it will not keep the atomic rather rickety. Again a neutron changes
fire going. 1e into a proton and an electron pops out.
Will other elements or isotopes work? Now we have plutonium.
38
Scientists have found a w ay to change uranium -238 into the more useful atom ic fuel plutonium. The U-238 is
put into a reactor where it is bom barded with neutrons from U -235. M any o f the U-238 atoms are built up into
plutonium -239 atoms, which can be separated chemically. A t one time, scientists thought that plutonium
was an a rtificial element, but we now know that it occurs naturally and is found in the mineral pitchblende.
But in order to have it, we first have to quered hundreds of islands in the Pa
have a good atomic cific. Our scientists were afraid that the
Can w e make
oven with plenty of German scientists would make an atom
atomic fuel?
n eu tron s. In oth er bomb for Hitler, and that this cruel
words, a chain reaction. In other words, madman would rule the world.
U-235, That was the problem that Working day and night, chemists and
nagged at American scientists in the physicists tried to invent a way of sep
years between 1939 and 1942. arating enough U-235 to start an atomic
Professor Fermi was sure he could furnace.
build an atomic furnace that would
work — and which could be used as an One group said the way to do it was the
oven to cook up plutonium. Other sci way it was done in a
How do we mass spectrometer, by
entists had calculated that if only they
separate
could get enough plutonium or enough shooting electrically
isotopes?
U-235, they could make a bomb that charged streams of ura
would knock America’s enemies right nium atoms between the poles of mag
out of the war. nets. The government, spent millions
For during these years, Hitler’s arm and millions of dollars to build electro
ies beat down nation after nation in magnetic separators at an out-of-the-
Europe, and the Japanese struck with way place in Tennessee called Oak
out warning at Pearl Harbor and con Ridge. It was, and is, a good factory for
39
separating isotopes, but it could not in the tank, and the ones made with
make enough U-235. heavier atoms would be moving more
Another group said the way to do it slowly than the lighter ones. So it would
was by centrifugal force — the force be the fast, lighMones that would have
that makes things try to fly outward the better chance of pushing through
when they are whirled around in a cir the porous wall — where they could be
cle. If we could make a gas or steam collected on the other side. Of course,
with uranium in it, and whirl it around some of the heavier particles would also
in a tank, the compounds made with get through, so we would have to do
heaviest uranium atoms would go to the the filtering over and over again in tank
outside and we could pump them off. after tank.
The Government had a factory built to The gas that had to be used was a
try this, but it did not work well. compound called uranium hexafluoride.
It is a vicious stuff. It would eat right
Professor Dunning and his Columbia through ordinary tanks and pipes and
group said the way to do pumps like a horrible acid. So for a
W hat is
it was to find a compound long time, the Government held back.
gaseous
of uranium that was a Then it told Professor Dunning to go
diffusion?
gas, and put it in a tank ahead and design a huge factory to be
with a porous wall — a wall with thou built out of special materials at Oak
sands and thousands of tiny holes in it Ridge. More millions of dollars were
— holes so small it would be hard for spent— and the gaseous diffusion plant,
the gas to leak through. The particles known in wartime code as K-25,
of compound would be banging around worked.
(1) M ining it. (2) M illin g it. (3) Refining it. (4) Separating U-235 from U-238 in a gaseous diffusion plant.
A t Bikini atoll in the Pa
cific, the U.S. set o ff an
atom bomb underw ater.
The cross section shows
how an A -bom b works.
41
mostly empty space, a neutron can go tieth — 524,288. In the eightieth —
quite far, even through a heavy metal more than 1,208,900,000,000,000,000,-
like uranium, before it bumps into a 000,000. And all this would happen
nucleus. And before it has a chance to in a fantastically small fraction of a
do that, it might have shot right out of second.
the lump. So if the lump is too small, That is what happened at Hiroshima
so many neutrons are wasted that no on August 6, 1945.
chain reaction starts.
But if the lump is large enough, some If atomic energy could be used only for
where in it one of the billions and bil blowing up people, not
How can
lions of atoms will split. It may split by many scientists would
w e tame
itself, because uranium is radioactive. have w o r k e d on it.
the A-bomb?
Or it may be split by one of the strange E ven w h ile the war
rays from outer space called cosmic was going on, physicists and engineers
rays. And when it splits, its neutrons were busy inventing machines which
will send the atomic blaze sweeping would keep chain reaction going, but
through the critical mass. going slowly, so the energy could be
used to run electric generators, ships,
The simplest kind of atomic chain reac and perhaps even airplanes. These ma
tion is the one that chines are called reactors.
. . . . . t a k e s p l a c e in a Three of the hardest problems these
A-bomb work? , T 1 ,
bomb. In the bomb scientists had to solve were: Getting
are two or more lumps of isotope. Each enough neutrons. N ot getting too many
lump weighs less than the critical mass, neutrons. Making the neutrons go at
but together they weigh more than the the right speed.
critical mass. They are a safe distance They got enough neutrons because
apart. But back of these lumps are small the right isotopes had to be manufac
lumps of ordinary explosive. A t the tured to use in the war.
right moment, these explosives are set They had to learn how to keep the
off. They shoot the isotope lumps to chain reaction from building up with
ward each other. The critical mass is an explosion — 2, 4, 8 and out! It is
formed. The atom bomb goes off. one thing to drench your U-235 or plu
First there is one fission. Then the tonium with flying neutrons in a bomb
two neutrons cause two fissions. Then you have dropped on your enemy. It is
each causes two, so there are four. another thing to do it when you are
Eight. Sixteen. Sixty-four. . . . anywhere around. In order to run a re
It does not sound fast. But it is actor, you have to have just the right
surprising how fast the numbers grow number of neutrons —r not too many,
when you keep multiplying by two! not too few. And you cannot learn to
In the tenth “generation” of fissions, do this by trial and error, because you
there would be 5T2. In the twen can only make one atomic error.
42
This is the Arm our research
reactor in Chicago, Illinois.
43
The first atom ic-powered sub
marine in the w orld, the Nauti
lus, was launched by the U.S
you must slow down your neutrons. between the little lumps of uranium in
Because if there is any U-238, it will the Stagg Field reactor.
grab the fast neutrons and not split.
The only neutrons the U-235 could get Another slower-down of neutrons is
would be the slow ones. w a ter. W a t e r is
How do w e make
Many things slow down neutrons. easy to handle, and
the neutrons
But you have to pick things that will it is especially use
slow down?
not absorb them. One of the first and ful because it boils.
best is carbon. Professor Fermi chose If the chain reaction starts to get out
carbon, in the form of graphite, to put of hand and the reactor gets too hot,
A to m ic e n e rg y has
been transform ed into
e le c tric ity , s u p p ly in g
pow er to communities.
45
reactors as being water moderated, to be rather heavy. This is because it
graphite moderated and so on. must be covered with thick metal
shielding, so that particles and rays do
Engineers and physicists have now in not escape and burn or poison people.
vented dozens of dif-
W hat kinds of ferent kinc[s of reac
reactors can
tors to do different
we build?
things. The kind of
Atom ic researchers
reactor that has the atomic fuel buried must “ shield” them
in a stack of graphite is called an atomic selves fro m r a d ia
tio n . They h a n d le
pile. The kind that keeps the fuel down
" h o t” materials only
in a tank of water is called a swimming with instruments or
pool reactor. In some reactors, melted with special gloves.
46
Suns Made to O rd e r
Even if you had a good rocket, you unbelievable pressure there. The mat
could not travel to ter at the sun’s center is stripped-down
Where do stars ^ A,
. . the sun and take a hydrogen — or rather, squashed-flat
get their energy?
sample of it, be hydrogen — just nuclei, because there
cause you would bum to a crisp long is no room for the outer electrons. The
before you got there. So all that anyone inside of the sun is also hot — about
can do to find out what makes the sun 20 million degrees centigrade. Under
hot is to study atomic physics and try these conditions, protons turn to neu
to match its facts with the facts astron trons, shoving out electrons. Proton-
omers have learned by watching the sun neutron pairs — which are the nuclei
from our cool little planet 93,000,000 of heavy hydrogen — are forced to
miles away. gether to become helium. This probably
But we think that the sun — like all happens in many ways, but all of them
the stars — makes nuclear energy. It give off energy.
does not make it by fission, but by It takes a little over eight minutes
fusion. It takes atoms of hydrogen, for that energy to travel to the earth
which are very simple atoms with one once it works its way to the surface of
proton in the nucleus, and it crushes the sun. But it takes 10,000 years for
them together so that they turn into the energy to work its way from the
helium, which has two protons in the center of the sun to the surface.
nucleus. Our binding energy chart tells
us that an enormous amount of mass — When the trial atom bomb exploded at
atomically speaking — is converted into Alamogordo on July
How does an
energy when this happens. 16, 1945, scientists
H-bomb work?
Now we have a lot more questions r e a liz e d that they
than answers about this. could not only make fission-energy, they
could now make fusion-energy the way
How does the sun squeeze these atoms? the sun does. For at the heart of Fat
It is so big that its Man, there were millions of degrees of
W hat happens .. ,,.
.............„ g r a v i t y ,
p u llin g temperature, just as there are at the
inside the sun? B ,
everything toward heart of the sun. And there were mil
the center of its huge mass, creates an lions of pounds of pressure. If we were
Fission: W hen an atom ic nucleus splits. Fusion: Two lig h tw e ig h t atom ic nuclei join, form ing a heavier nucleus.
to put the right kind of hydrogen atoms The trouble is, we have found no way
into the heart of an atomic explosion, to control this terrible
Can w e tame
we could make a second explosion of and w o n d e rfu l new
the H-bomb?
energy that would make Fat Man look force. We can make
scrawny. the pressures and temperatures we need
The right kind of hydrogen is the — for an instant. But if we want to
heaviest of the three hydrogen isotopes, make fusion energy steadily, as the sun
tritium, a radioactive atom with one does, we must have a bottle that will
proton and two neutrons in its nucleus. hold those pressures and those tempera
By crushing a tritium nucleus with an tures. What can hold them?
other tritium nucleus, we get helium We have tried strange magnetic bot
and two neutrons and 11 million elec tles, in which gases are trapped and
tron volts. By crushing a tritium nucleus squeezed without ever touching solid
into a “heavy hydrogen” nucleus, we matter. But they have not worked.
get helium, one neutron, and 17 million We are learning to set off H-bombs
electron volts. underground, and slowly draw off the
Although the H-bomb that exploded heat.
on Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific on But we have only begun. At this
November 1, 1952 — and not only moment, in some laboratory somewhere
melted a whole island but boiled it away in the world, someone may be watch
— is hidden in military secrecy, we ing queer streaks on a screen or the
know now that there is no limit to the needle on a dial that says another, even
energy we can make from the atom. greater, Atomic Age is about to begin.
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