The X-10 reactor was shut down in 1963 and declared a National Historical Landmark in 1965. The reactor face is still open to the public and a must see to anyone who visits Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Find out what else occurred on this day in science history.
Showing posts with label November. Show all posts
Showing posts with label November. Show all posts
Thursday, 7 November 2013
On This Day in Science History - November 4 - X-10 Reactor
On November 4, 1943, the X-10 nuclear reactor began operations. This reactor was the first reactor built to produce plutonium for the Manhattan Project. The reactor consisted of a 24 foot cube of graphite slabs surrounded by a thick concrete radiation shield. There were 1,248 horizontal holes drilled into the graphite to hold slugs of uranium fuel. These slugs would remain in the reactor to emit and absorb neutrons to convert uranium-238 into plutonium-239. After a period of time, operators would push an new uranium slug into the hole and shove the plutonium rich slug out the back for processing. The plutonium would be extracted and sent on to the Los Alamos facility.
On This Day in Science History - November 5 - Léon Teisserenc de Bort
November 5th is L?on Teisserenc de Bort's birthday. He was a French meteorologist best known for the discovery of the layer in the atmosphere known as the stratosphere. He was a pioneer of the unmanned weather balloons carrying instruments to collect and record data such as temperature, pressure and wind speed. Typically, as you increase altitude, the temperature falls rather quickly. He discovered a boundary layer of the atmosphere approximately 7 miles up where the temperature would stop decreasing and would remain constant as the altitude increased. He concluded there were two regions of the atmosphere. The first 7 miles was called the troposphere ("sphere of change" in Greek) where the weather was constantly changing and stirring up the different gases in air because of the temperature differences in the air. After 7 miles, he reasoned the gases in the air would layer themselves, heaviest to lightest in strata. He named this section the stratosphere.
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On This Day in Science History - November 6 - Yeast Fermentation
November 7th marks the passing of Swedish biochemist, Hans von Euler-Chelpin. He was awarded the 1929 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Arthur Harden for their investigations into the process of fermentation and yeast enzymes.
Brewers use yeast to convert glucose (sugar) into carbon dioxide and ethyl alcohol. People have been using yeast for centuries for fermentation but the process was not fully understood. Eduard Buchner identified the yeast enzyme called zymase when he removed all cells from the yeast and still managed to produce fermentation. He would win the 1907 Nobel Prize for this discovery. Harden later showed zymase was made up of two different varieties and Euler-Chelpin discovered the complementary enzyme, cozymase that was responsible for the production of carbon dioxide in the process.
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On This Day in Science History - November 7 - Tacoma Narrows Bridge
On November 7, 1940, the bridge spanning Puget Sound across the Tacoma Narrows in Washington state dramatically collapsed. The bridge opened on July 1, 1940 as the third longest suspension bridge in the world. Almost immediately, the bridge was nicknamed "Gallopin' Gertie" because of its sway due to the wind. The state hired an engineer to propose methods to settle Gertie's galloping tendencies. They concluded their study on November 2, 1940 and recommended a couple of options to fix the problem. Unfortunately, the bridge didn't wait for the repairs.
On the morning of November 7, the winds were pretty strong and the bridge swayed more than usual. As the wind speed built up during the morning, the swaying approached the resonant frequency of the bridge itself. The bridge span began to jump and sway until it ripped itself apart at 11:00. Because of the long period of time it took to reach the breaking point, local camera shop owner Barney Elliott was able to film the collapse. This film is still shown to students of architecture, physics and engineering.
There was only one casualty to the collapse. The man in the film running from his car was named Leonard Coatsworth. Mr. Coatsworth attempted to cross the bridge but abandoned his car and daughter's cocker spaniel Tubby. Tubby would not leave the car even when others attempted to rescue him and went down with the bridge.
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Thursday, 31 October 2013
On This Day in Science History - November 1 - Betatron
November 1st is Donald Kerst's birthday. Kerst was an American physicist who invented the betatron. The betatron is a type of cyclotron that takes electrons from a transformer and accelerates them within a vacuum tube using a large, alternating magnetic field. The name betatron is a reference to the beta particle which is a fast moving electron given off by beta decay radiation. The betatron's electrons can build up enough energy to cause nuclear transformations or strike a metal target to create x-rays and gamma rays. Betatrons are found in many applications of particle physics, radiation medicine and industry.
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