Science: Atom Crackers

The size and shape of an invisible barn might be determined by throwing a million baseballs at it and studying the number of balls which hit it and the angles at which they bounce off. That is the way physicists have determined the structure of the atom. Pellets have been radium particles, X-rays and, lately, cosmic rays. Inability to control available ammunition has been the great handicap.

Last week three young Carnegie Institution men, Drs. Merle Anthony Tuve, Lawrence R. Hafstad and Odd Dahl, through the Physical Review, offered atom crackers a...

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