No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
The fears of many people who imagine that, by developing nuclear fission for the purpose of making destructive atomic bombs, the United States had seized a bear by the tail, will be set at rest by the exhibition planned for display in the Museum during the months of November, December, and January.
The exhibit, entitled "Atomic Energy is Here for Good," is sponsored by the Brookhaven National Laboratory and Associated Universities, Inc. Scientists have designed the exhibit to help make atomic energy, as Chairman David E. Lilienthal of the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission terms it, "everybody's business." A "world" that is our greatest frontier of sclence--the nucleus, or the heart of the atom--is brought into focus for the general public in demonstrations, models, displays, panel illustrations, and photomurals.
Featured in the exhibit is a model atomic pile which splits single uranium atoms before the eyes of the spectators. Energy released by this fission process is amplified into visual and sound effects. A tiny capsule of a mixture of radium and beryllium is used in the model to produce the neutrons that pierce the nuclei of uranium atoms in the fission chamber.
The power possibilities of nuclear energy are demonstrated in a model power plant showing how a nuclear reactor, or atomic pile, may some day be employed to generate electric power by means of the great heat release resulting from nuclear fission--heat that may be transformed into steam to drive electric generating machinery.
Other demonstrations and models depict other beneficial uses, stressing the great value of nuclear energy in scientific research and processes relating to the fields of medicine and biology, chemistry, agriculture, metallurgy, and numerous others. A striking feature of this section will be the radioactive flower, growing in soil fertilized by a phosphate containing radioactive phosphorus~ A Geiger counter is used to demonstrate the course of "tracer" atoms into the roots, stem, leaves, and flowers of the plant.
A miniature Van de Graaf electrostatic generator, a machine that builds up high charges of static electricity, is one of several scientific instruments demonstrated. When visitors touch the machine when it is accumulating charges up to 125,000 volts, it will literally "make their hair stand on end."
A Wilson cloud chamber shows the paths made by atomic particles in a pressure chamber containing an atmosphere of fog.
To enable the general public to visualize the construction of the atom the exhibit will include a section devoted to basic physics. This portion will analyze the simplest atoms and go on to explain radioactiviw, and why the nuclei of the heavy elements, such as uranium, are used in fission processes. Nor is the historical element of the subject neglected.
No pains have been spared to assist visitors in forming a decision of what is to be gained from nuclear energy.
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