Science: Vacuum Ecstasy

Dr. Kenneth Claude Devereux Hickman is a suave, sociable British chemist who works for the Eastman Kodak laboratories in Rochester. N. Y. His specialty is the efficient recovery of vitamins from fish oils by a clever technique of distillation.

Distilling vitamins requires a very high vacuum. Scientists do not expect to make a perfect vacuum, any more than they expect to reach the cold of absolute zero, but they try to get as close to perfection as possible.

Mechanical pumps have a certain limit beyond which they cannot decrease the vacuum chamber pressure any further....

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