Science: First Nuclear Power

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, slim in a royal blue coat and ermine-trimmed hat, stood under a white nylon canopy in gale-swept northern England. "All of us here," she said in her girlish voice, "know we are present at the making of history . . . It is with pride that I open Calder Hall, Britain's first atomic power station." She pulled a small lever, and unseen controLs shifted in the brightly colored, futuristic structures behind the nylon canopy. The hand of a clocklike dial turned, measuring the flow of atom-born electricity into Britain's power lines.

The U.S. and the U.S.S.R. have experimental...

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