Science: Fusion Not Yet

Controlled nuclear fusion may be farther away than had been hoped. Last week Dr. B.FJ. Schonland, director of Britain's Atomic Energy Research Establishment, announced that the neutrons emitted from the famous ZETA fusion apparatus (TIME, Feb. 3) did not come from fusion of heavy hydrogen atoms at uniform high temperature. As the U.S.'s Atomic Energy Commission had indicated, they were apparently a result of collisions of high-velocity atoms with low-velocity ones. Experts in fusion techniques do not class this action as real thermonuclear fusion.

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