to free electrons and ions in an electric avalanche.
*
The Russians might drop an atom bomb
on the school in your town,
so you have learned to duck and cover.
Now you know your nation must be ready.
Assess, prepare, assemble
its own tools, its own threats, its own fears.
An avalanche, a cascade, a chain reaction.
Pretty soon there’s a missile silo
on every farm, a nuclear sub in every sea.
Townsend discharge
A gas conducts electricity
in a strong electric field
when a radioactive particle
ionizes an atom of the gas
to free other electrons
cascading toward the anode
and to free other ions
cascading toward the cathode.
Maligning atoms
Atoms are all around us;
we breathe them and we eat them.
You’d like to think they were our friends.
You’d like to think they were hard
little nuts, not easy to crack.
So it took a while to realize
the dangers of atomic emissions
and that people should not watch
test explosions of atomic bombs.
Today, Madame Curie’s papers
are kept in lead-lined boxes, too dangerous
to handle without protective clothing.
John Sealy Townsend became a research student at Cambridge
at the same time as Ernest Rutherford, and Hans Geiger studied
under Ernest Rutherford at the University of Manchester. Ernest
Rutherford distinguished alpha and beta particles. Alpha decay is
the emission of a particle containing two protons and two
neutrons; beta decay is the emisson of an electron or positron.
Gamma radiation is the emision of high-energy photons.
John Sealy Townsend became a research student at Cambridge at the same time as Ernest Rutherford, and Hans Geiger studied under Ernest Rutherford at the University of Manchester. Ernest Rutherford distinguished alpha and beta particles. Alpha decay is the emission of a particle containing two protons and two neutrons; beta decay is the emisson of an electron or positron. Gamma radiation is the emision of high-energy photons.
See also in The book of science:
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