1946 | Science
Science
A linear proton accelerator devised by physicist Luis W. Alvarez at the University of California, Berkeley, is based on the formation of standing electromagnetic waves in a long cylindrical tank (see orbital-electron capture, 1939). Now 35, Alvarez worked on microwave radar research at MIT from 1940 to 1943 and then helped to develop the atomic bomb at Los Alamos, N.M.
Illinois-born E. M. (Edward Mills) Purcell, 34, at MIT's Radiation Laboratory discovers nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) in liquids and solids; he devises a method of detecting NMR that is far more accurate than the atomic-beam method created by Isidor I. Rabi for studying the molecular structure of pure materials and the composition of mixtures (see radio wave, 1952; medicine, 1973).
Dutch crystallographer Herman Bijvoet, 28, demonstrates a way to determine the absolute configuration of crystals (see Hoff, Le Bel, 1874): he shows that while left-handed and right-handed crystals may look alike when bombarded with X-rays, if one of the atoms in the crystal is an absorber for the X-rays used, then left-handed and right-handed crystals will give different results (see Barton, 1950).
A "bathyscape" devised by physicist Auguste Piccard, now 62, carries scientists deep below the surface of the ocean for marine research (see 1960; balloon, 1932).
Gloucestershire-born astronomer (Alfred Charles) Bernard Lovell, 33, uses his new radio telescope October 9 and 10 to observe a particularly intense meteor shower, directing radio signals from the instrument's transmitter (see Reber, 1937). He finds that the number of optical sightings corresponds to the number of radio echoes being received and that the timing of the two rates is just as predicted, thus proving that the echoes are caused by the meteors and permitting meteor showers to be recorded in daylight (see Jodrell Bank, 1951).
Zoologist Clarence E. McClung dies at Swarthmore, Pa., January 17 at age 75; chemist Gilbert Newton Lewis drops dead in his laboratory at Berkeley, Calif., March 23 at age 70; physicist-mathematician Sir James Jeans dies at his native London September 16 at age 79.