Definition and Examples of Semantic Satiation

Definition and Examples of Semantic Satiation Definition Semantic satiation is a wonder whereby the continuous reiteration of a word in the end prompts a feeling that the word has lost its significance. This impact is additionally known asâ semantic immersion or verbal satiation. The idea of semantic satiation was depicted by E. Severance and M.F. Washburn in The American Journal of Psychology in 1907. The term was presented by analysts Leon James and Wallace E. Lambert in the article Semantic Satiation Among Bilinguals in the Journal of Experimental Psychology (1961). For a great many people, the way theyve experience semantic satiation is in a perky setting: purposely rehashing a solitary word again and again just to get to that sensation whenâ it quits feeling like a real word. Be that as it may, this marvel can show up in increasingly unpretentious manners. For example, composing educators will frequently demand that understudies utilize rehashed words with care, not on the grounds that it shows a superior vocabularyâ and a progressively articulate style,â but to maintain a strategic distance from the loss of criticalness. Abuse of solid words, for example, words with exceptional implications or obscenity, can likewise succumb to semantic satiation and lose their intensity.â See Examples and Observations beneath. For related ideas, likewise observe: BleachingEpimoneGrammatical Oddities That You Probably Never Heard About in SchoolPronunciationSemantics Models and Observations I started to enjoy the most out of control likes as I lay there in obscurity, for example, that there was no such town, and even that there was no such state as New Jersey. I tumbled to rehashing the word Jersey again and again, until it got moronic and inane. On the off chance that you have ever lain conscious around evening time and rehashed single word again and again, thousands and millions and countless a large number of times, you know the upsetting mental state you can get into.(James Thurber, My Life and Hard Times, 1933)Have you at any point attempted the analysis of saying some plain word, for example, hound, multiple times? By the thirtieth time it has become a word like snark or pobble. It doesn't get manageable, it turns out to be wild, by repetition.(G.K. Chesterton, The Telegraph Poles. Cautions and Discursions, 1910)A Closed LoopIf we articulate a word again and again, quickly and immediately, at that point the word is felt to lose meaning. Take any word, say, CHIMNEY . Let's assume it over and again and in quick progression. Inside certain seconds, the word loses meaning. This misfortune is alluded to as semantic satiation. What appears to happen is that the word shapes a sort of shut circle with itself. One expression leads into a second articulation of a similar word, this leads into a third, etc. . . . [A]fter rehashed articulation, this important continuation of the word is obstructed since, presently, the word drives just to its own recurrence.(I.M.L. Tracker, Memory, fire up. ed. Penguin, 1964) The MetaphorSemantic satiation is a representation of sorts, obviously, as though neurons are little animals to be topped off with the word until their little tummies are full, they are satisfied and need no more. Indeed, even single neurons habituate; that is, they quit terminating to a tedious example of incitement. Be that as it may, semantic satiation influences our cognizant experience, not simply individual neurons.(Bernard J. Baars, In the Theater of Consciousness: The Workspace of the Mind. Oxford University Press, 1997)Disconnection of Signifier and Signified-If you gaze persistently at a word (on the other hand, hear it out again and again), the signifier and connoted in the long run seem to self-destruct. The point of the activity isn't to change vision or hearing yet to upset the interior association of the sign. . . . You keep on observing the letters however they no longer make the word; it, all things considered, has evaporated. The marvel is called semantic satiation (first recognized by Severance Washburn 1907), or loss of the connoted idea from the signifier (visual or acoustic).(David McNeill, Gesture and Thought. College of Chicago Press, 2005)- [B]y saying a word, even a critical one, again and again . . . you will find that the word has been changed into a negligible sound, as redundancy channels it of its emblematic worth. Any male who has served in, let us state, the United States Army or invested energy in a school residence has had this involvement in what are called foul words . . .. Words that you have been instructed not to utilize and that ordinarily summon a humiliated or vexed reaction, when utilized again and again, are deprived of their capacity to stun, to humiliate, to point out a unique outlook. They become just sounds, not symbols.(Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology. Alfred A. Knopf, 1992) OrphanWhy has my dads passing disregarded me feeling all in all, when he hasnt been a piece of my life in seventeen years? Im a vagrant. I rehash the word so anyone can hear, again and again, tuning in to it ricochet off the dividers of my youth room until it makes no sense.Loneliness is the topic, and I play it like an ensemble, in interminable variations.(Jonathan Tropper, The Book of Joe. Arbitrary House, 2004)Boswell on the Effects of Intense Inquiry (1782)Words, the portrayals, or rather indications of thoughts and ideas in humankind, however routine to us all, are, when dynamically considered, exceedingly superb; in such a great amount of, that by attempting to consider them with a feeling of extraordinary request, I have been influenced even with energy and a sort of trance, the outcome of having ones resources extended futile. I guess this has been experienced by numerous individuals of my perusers, who in an attack of considering, have attempted to follow the association bet ween an expression of normal use and its significance, rehashing the word again and again, and as yet beginning in a sort of silly awe, as though tuning in for data from some mystery power in the psyche itself.(James Boswell [The Hypochondriack], On Words. The London Magazine, or, Gentlemans Monthly Intelligencer, Volume 51, February 1782)

E business exam questions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

E business test questions - Essay Example The social government assistance of the organizations increment and they hope to build the government assistance to the clients. There can be value separation with the utilization of the Internet as the clients know about the items. The business houses may hope to diminish the cost of the merchandise to pull in the clients. The e plan of action of Amazon depends on offering items at lower costs. This aides in the expansion of the social government assistance. With the ascent of the Internet, different business openings are open for the business visionaries. Complementarities: The model has depicted the administrations as the complementarities. The administrations of the e plan of action ought to be fast and exact. The essential idea is to furnish the customer’s with important data that helps in the improvement of the business. Lock in: The lock in time of the business houses is generally low while utilizing the e plan of action. The quest for customers’ get faster and the expense is not as much as that of the customary procedure. Hence, the lock in of the organization is consequently diminished. The organization may likewise receive a model to deliver what is requested. Oddity: In the e plan of action, there has been an ascent in the oddity procedure with the ascent of advancement. The business houses hope to pull in the clients with the utilization of creative procedures. Amazon and Ebay offer limits and blessing vouchers, which urge the clients to shop on the web. (Kirikova and Grundspenkis, 2002; Pp 378-379) Porter’s esteem chain exercises portrays that a connection exists between the firm’s exercises in regards to the providers and the clients. The worth chain exercises of a firm can be depicted as follows: With the headway of innovation and the utilization of the Internet, the worth chain of an organization can be connected without any problem. The viability of an organization has expanded with the utilization of the Internet. All the parts in the worth chain have been profited by the utilization of the Internet. The

0% COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - SIPA Admissions Blog

0% COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - SIPA Admissions Blog I thought I would take the opposite tact of what you might expect today.   In past posts I have provided some information on the completion percentage of files in our office.   Rather than go that direction today, I thought I would try to put all of you in the same comfort zone by talking about our progress in reading files. Let me comfort all of you by saying the percentage of files read to date is basically zero.   Thats 0%, zip, nada, zilch. Classes just started this week and many members of the Committee just returned.   As you know, we have been busy in our office working as fast as we can to complete files, but we have sent out zero batches.   A very small number of applicants have a single read done on their file.   These individuals completed their applications well in advance of the January 5th deadline and a few staff members read these files over the winter break. However, rest easy everyone.   You are all in the same boat.   It does not matter if you received a your file is complete email last week or if you have yet to get one we have not started to send out batches yet so no one is behind.   Again, when a file is batched and sent out has no bearing upon the admission decision.   The admission file review process is not a race so do not fear. Thanks again for our patience.

The Food And Drug Administration Is A Regulatory Agency...

The Food and Drug Administration is a regulatory agency responsible for the public health of American residents. The agency is located in Silver Springs, Maryland. The current extent of FDA regulations reaches a wide variety of product groups such as electronic devices, cosmetics, foods, biologics, tobacco, medical devices, and veterinary devices (US Food Drug Administration, 2016). The FDA is also accountable for the safety of the food supply, prescription drugs, and the manufacturing of products such as tobacco (US Food Drug Administration, 2016). The FDA’s organization is divided into five offices: office of the commissioner, foods and veterinary medicine, medical products and tobacco, global regulatory operations and policy, and operations (FDA Organization, 2016). According to the FDA website, the President’s 2016 fiscal year FDA budget is 4.9 billion dollars (2016 FDA Budget Summary, 2016). The FDA’s origin did not begin as the federal consumer protection agency it is widely recognized for being today. Prior to the FDA transforming into the present-day agency, the FDA’s emergence can be traced back to the agricultural industry during the 1800’s (History, 2015). In fact, it was Congress that enacted the FDCA (Food, Drugs, Cosmetics Act) of 1938 that created the modern-day FDA (Allen, 2013). Despite the FDA’s passing of the tobacco law, the ongoing issues concerning the under and over regulation of products, and the high number of drug recalls suggests that theShow MoreRelatedThe Health Care Financing Administration2019 Words   |  9 Pagesprograms such as the Medicare and Medicaid programs established under the Social Security Act (SSA). The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) administers Medicare through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), formerly known as the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA). 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Biology Prefixes and Suffixes Erythr- or Erythro-

Leadership Value Free Essays

Leadership has been a common term and everyone has his or her own understanding of its meaning. Most of the time we understood leadership on one’s strong character combined with charisma. But this understanding is faulty as leadership is not a sole function of individual charisma or talent but a collective activity. We will write a custom essay sample on Leadership Value or any similar topic only for you Order Now Gilbert Fairnholm defines leadership as an interactive function of a leader and several followers jointly engaged† (p. 8) which means that there is a collective effort in terms of value and trust enough to prove each one’s confidence in participating in collective activity. Value on the other hand derived its roots from French and English word courage or valor. In business world, value means worth thus according to Kim S. Cameron, â€Å"value creation is the objective of every enterprise, every worker, and every leader and all employees are judged by their ability to create value† (p. 4). Leadership value therefore could mean a collected courageous undertakings being inspired by the leader’s own courage or the worth of having a leader in a collective effort. The leadership Principles Joseph A. Heim pointed out five principles of leadership that should be implemented in order to have a â€Å"successful management of people and technology† (p. 161). The first principle, the people understands the vision. Heim explained that when people understands the vision or the larger task of an enterprise, and are given the right information, the resources, and the responsibility, they will do the right thing (p. 161). The second principle is empowerment of individual. Heim noted that empowered people—and of course with a good leadership–empowered groups will have not only the ability but also the desire to participate in the decision process. Heim explained that the level of involvement will enable and encourage the individual to make decision rather than adopt a passive or reactive attitude, waiting to be told what to do. The third principle is a comprehensive and effective communications network. Heim emphasized that this network should distribute knowledge and information widely; embracing the openness and trust that allow the individual to feel empowered to affect the real problems. The fourth is integrated enterprise, it is the result of â€Å"democratization and dissemination of information through the network† (p. 161) in all directions irrespective of organizational position. The result of these first four principles, which is distributed decision-making, is the fifth principle. Heim pointed out that â€Å"information freely shared with empowered people who are motivated to make decisions will naturally distribute the decision making process through the entire organization. Leadership and Values According to Jeswal Salacuse, â€Å"Leadership express a complex and at the same time flexible concept† (p. 19). Salacuse noted that the English word â€Å"leader† is derived from the old English laedan which means to show the way, to be ahead of   moving a group of people willing toward and objective. It therefore implies the existence of followers. Like leadership, everyone may have already basic idea of what values are. Dran, Gila M. Von, and Jennifer Cargill point out that Values â€Å"are broad general beliefs about the way people should behave, or about some end state they should attain† (p. 121). They explained that people form their values in the same way in which they develop their personality, thus values are conclusive beliefs individual develop gradually about what is true or right or good about their world. They pointed out â€Å"values come from the early conditioning, experience, and significant events in one’s life† (p. 121) and are the criteria for selecting actions, goals, and methods. Leadership Traits Pieter John Diederik Drenth, Henk Thiery, and Charles Johanes Wolff, pointed out that leadership traits â€Å"is founded on the assumption that leaders poses certain personal qualities, such as courage, intelligence, strength of character, vision, or charisma, which followers do not possess† (p. 326) But this assumption waned because according to Drent, Thiery, and Wolff, â€Å"it has proved impossible to find a single set of characteristic that enables a clear and reliable distinction to be drawn between†¦ leaders and followers† (p. 326). But recent study admits that certain characteristics are only important in certain circumstances such as in athletic or sports. Drent, Thiery and Wolff pointed out the studies conducted in 1981 by Bass which concludes that â€Å"Leadership as such is not a property of an individual’s personality, but there are nonetheless certain fixed personal characteristic that seem to play part in the exercise of leadership† (p. 326). Leadership Skill Like leadership and values, skill is a familiar term. Skill is the ability to do something well. Robert Eugene Lefton and Victor Buzzota identified four basic leadership skills that a leader needs. First, The sizing-up skills or the ability to observe what do in work situations as objectively as you can; Second, Communication skills or the ability to find out what others think and for getting your own ideas across, Third, Motivational skills or the ability to create an environment in which people do what they are capable of because they have a compelling reason to do so, and fourth, Adaptive skills or the ability to relate to people as a unique individual. Advance leadership skills Advance leadership skills according to William Christ, are â€Å"blends of knowledge, skill, and attitude and require greater levels of behavioral flexibility and adaptability† (p. 29). Below are some of the advance leadership scales that Christ delineated. (1) Manage and resolve conflicts effectively, (2) Develop messages that influence attitudes, beliefs, and actions, (3) Ability to demonstrate credibility and ability to manage multiple communications effectively, (4) Creative management skills, and (5) interpersonal skills. Leadership Behavior Leadership behavior according Manuel London is the result of perceiving situations, relating situational perceptions to accumulated knowledge, and then using scripts to guide the production of situationally appropriate behavior.   Studies on leadership behavior shows that exemplary leaders always balanced high task orientation and high person orientation, according to Gary Monroe Crow, Joseph Mathews, and Lloyed Mc Cleary, task orientation focused such behaviors as planning, monitoring and coordinating, while person-orientation focused on such behavior as informing of decisions and praising their accomplishment (p. 11). Assessing Leadership and measuring its Effect Assessing leadership according to Daniel Goleman , Rechard Boyatzis, and Annie Mckee can be done through a series of interviews   and observations by a professional executive coach. Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee point out that a â€Å"typical process include conversations about the leaders career and life history, discussion of current managerial and leadership challenges, and discussion of the organizational-level issues as well as including things such as climate, politics, and system† (p. 228). Novick, Morrow, and Mays discussed measuring leadership effect.   According to them, one question that a leader should ask is, ‘How am I doing as a leader?’   They suggested that by using psychological assessment instruments can help measure leadership effect or effectiveness.   This instrument that help assess one’s self and appreciate the contribution of others is available in many forms. Work Cited Cameron, Kim S. Competing Values Leadership: Creating Value in Organization. Christ, William. Leadership in Times of Change: A Handbook for Communication and Media Administrators (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1998) Crow, Gary Monroe, et.al. Leadership: A Relevant and Realistic Role for Principals. (Eye on Education, Inc., 1996). Drenth, Pieter Johan Drederick, et.al., Organizational Psychology. (Psychology Press, 1998). Fairnholm, Gilbert W. Leadership and Culture of Trust. (Praeger/Greenwood, 1994). Heim, Joseph. Manufacturing Systems: Foundations of World Class Practice. (National Academies, 1992). Goleman Daniel, et.al. Primal Leadership: Learning to Lead. (Harvard Business School Press, 2004). Lefton, Robert Eugene and Buzzota, Victor. Leadership Through People Skills. (McGraw-Hill Professional, 2004). London, Manuel. How People Evaluate Others in Organization. (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001). Novick, Lloyd, et.al. Public Health Administration: Principles for Population Based Management. (Jones and Bartlett, 2007) Salacuse, Jeswal W. Leading Leaders: How to Manage Smart, Talented, Rich, and Powerful People. (AMARCOM Div. American Management Association, 2006).             How to cite Leadership Value, Essay examples

Atomic bomb Example For Students

Atomic bomb Where did the atomic bomb come from? In this paper, I will look at the development of the ideas needed to create an atomic bomb. Specifically, what did scientists need to know for them to theorize that a cataclysmic explosion would result when a critical mass of certain elements undergo a chain reaction of nuclear fission. However, I will only look at scientific ideas generally, as they progressed towards fission. This development of ideas was propelled by genius, persistence and tenacity, coupled with flashes of insight into the nature of the universe. We see that this development is tied closely to the ability to free the teathers of erroneous paradigms and build better models of the universe in their place. We will be concerned, principally, with the development of physics. Einstein wrote the following on the definition of physics: What we call physics comprises that group of natural sciences which base their concepts on measurements; and whose concepts and propositions lend themselves to mathematical formulation. (Weaver, 78) Although physics today is more focused, this is the basis of all science. One of the first groups of people to freely think about the universe and make an attempt to explain their world scientifically were the Greeks. II. The Greek Ideology The Greeks investigation of science demonstrate that their minds were on par with the best of this era, specifically Aristotle (384 322 B. C. ), who formed many brilliant theories. He, along with others, put the theories into sophisticated form that created the basis of scientific thought for close to two millennia. In his universe were four elements: Earth, Water, Air, and Fire. The Earth was the common center of all the solid materials and had a natural place as the center of the universe. If all the solid material sought a location as close to the center as possible, then the Earth had to be a sphere. He had likewise ordered the other elements into spheres. Water had its natural place on the surface of the sphere Earth. Air had its natural place on the surface of the sphere Water. Fire had its natural place outside the sphere of Air. Observations corresponded to this view of the universe. However, he performed no experiments. He stated that heavier objects would want to move faster toward their respective spheres than lighter objects. It is regrettable that he did not perform any of a number of simple experiments to prove or disprove his ideas. These Greek philosophers worked to explain the motion of matter. Their ordering of the universe defined what happened when an element found itself outside of its sphere. It simply sought its correct sphere. They also did well with basic types of motion, stating that when one object had contact with another it would create motion in that object. There were other types of motion they had trouble with. For instance, why does a ball keep rolling even after your hand no longer has contact with it? Another problem that arises from the Aristotelian classification is how would two objects affect each other in a vacuum? Aristotle had theorized that vacuums would create difficulties, but in his day they were only considered a philosophical abstraction. The problem did not need to be dealt with seriously. Nevertheless, motion in the absence of the element Air was unthinkable. For them, Air had inherent physical properties. Also, it encompassed everything that could possibly have motion. The absence of Air meant the absence of motion. Before we can answer these questions, however, we must look at when and how observation combined with experimentation. III. Unifying Observation and Thought with Experimentation The Aristotelian universe was generally accepted for about 1600 years. During the late Middle Ages the view began to change slowly. Scholars began to view experimenting as a method of testing theories. The following passage explains the beginning of the change in ideas when scientists used experimentation methodically. Historically we may say the revolution in ideas began with Copernicus and his heliocentric theory of the solar system, but Keplers work is much closer to modern science than that of Copernicus, for in formulating his three laws of planetary motion, Kepler proceeded much the way the contemporary physicist does in constructing theoretical models of structures such as atoms, stars, or galaxies. Even so, Galileo and Newton were the initiators of modern science, for whereas Keplers work was primarily empirical, the work of Galileo and Newton has all the elements of what we now call physics. This work was an enormous step forward in that it revealed the relationship between the motion of a body and the forces acting on it. (Weaver, 18) Lets back track slightly to Galileo Galilei (1564 1642). It was not until Galileo that the Aristotelian universe collapsed in a flurry of ingenious and conclusive experiments. Galileo did not invent experimentation, but he forever united it with science. For a brief background of Galileo, we turn to Segres From Falling Bodies to Radio Waves. Galileo passed the first ten years of his life in Pisa, went to Florence around 1574, and was back in Pisa in 1581, registering as a student of medicine at the university. When he was nineteen years old he became acquainted with geometry by reading books and meeting the mathematician Ostilio Ricci (1540 1603). what a revelation the discovery of geometry must have been for the young man. He was studying something probably distasteful to him, and all of a sudden he found the intellectual for which h e was born and which somehow had escaped him previously. Probably only passionate love can equal the strong emotion aroused by such an event. (Segre, From Falling , 16) Galileo was the first person to create a shop for the pursuit of scientific study. Some experiments dealt with time-keeping, not an easy task four hundred years ago. He dripped water down inclined planes and achieved useful results. He also experimented with rolling balls of various weights on these inclined planes. It is not difficult to prove that the amount of time for the ball to traverse the plane is independent of the mass of the ball. In other words, it requires an equal amount of time for two balls of different weights to roll down an inclined plane. From this, and other experiments, he made the generalization that all bodies fell through equal distances in equal times. There were other significant discoveries made. Aristotelian thought was proved incorrect. Or we may say the generalizations made by Galileo provides a base to explain more phenomena when compared to the Aristotelian universe. After other people performed experiments and formed theories, and a hundred years passed, Sir Issac Newton (1642 1727) enters the stage. Newton developed mathematical tools to help him solve the problems created by his scientific pursuits. The nature of the phenomena he was pursuing forced him to create calculus. The following passage fills in some of the details. Using the calculus, Newton deduced Keplers three laws of planetary motion. This changed the methodology of scientific research forever, for it showed that a correct physical law (Newtons law of gravity) combined with logic (mathematics) can reveal new truths with relatively little effort and in a relatively short time. Keplers empirical formulation of the laws of planetary motion represents some sixty man-years of research (thirty years of Tycho Brahes observation and thirty years of Keplers arithmetic analysis), were as Newtons derivation took only an hour or two. (Jefferson, 19) The development of the correct mathematical tools was an important event. When mathematics is combined with experimentation and thought, a new method of discovering the laws of nature is possible. The importance of this event can not be understated. Here is another example of the power of Newtons laws, applying thought and using mathematics. At the beginning of the 1800s , Uranus was found to have perturbations in its orbit. These perturbations were different from the orbit calculated by Newtons law of gravitation. This fact threatened to dismantle the Newtonian universe. Then in the 1840s, John Couch Adams (1819 1892) and Jean Joseph Leverrier (1811 1877), believing Newtons law to be correct, developed a theory which could account for the differences between the predicted location for Uranus and its actual location. This theory was that another planets gravitational influence was perturbing Uranuss orbit. Subsequently, Neptune was discovered. Still the difficulty of how objects affected each other remained. We return now to the different types of motion to appreciate the scientific problem facing people in the 17th century. IV. Action at a Distance Recall that the Greeks had difficulty explaining how a ball, once rolling, keeps rolling, and how objects would affect each other through a vacuum. Newton was able to explain the first problem with his first law: An object in motion tends to stay in motions. This is also know as inertia. The ball that is rolling stays in motion because the only way to change its motion is to subject it to more force. Community Service Projects, Lo EssayThese charges were concentrated in a comparatively small volume of space. This nucleus was circled by a similar number of negative charges. (He knew there were problems with this theory, but he used this theory in the same way that Newton was willing to use action-at-a-distance. It was close enough to make useful calculations. ) The alpha particles that shot into the foil and bounced back were deflected by the nucleus. This deflection was the result of the mutual repulsion two protons have for each other. It is governed by the mathematical description of Coulombs law. Without field theory, Rutherford would have had to figure out how two very small protons are able to feel each others presence inside an atom. But with field theory, he did not need to concern himself with it too much. Rutherfords next problem dealt with finding the neutron. The neutron had been hypothesized from the fact that helium has a weight of four protons but an electrical charge of only two. The question of the extra weight was perplexing. The idea of a neutral particle, with the properties that are associated with what is now known as the neutron, was first proposed by Rutherford in 1920. James Chadwick (1891 1974) and Rutherford performed a search for this theoretical particle, but were unable to prove its existence. Shortly, we will see what had to happen first to make the discovery of the neutron possible. Thus, the atom could be shown to exist. Shortly after Rutherfords evidence that the atom is like planetary system, but on a very small scale, was made known, many people commenced work in this new field which later became known as nuclear physics. Some, such as Rutherford and the Curies, made this topic their lifes work. The experiments lead to quantum mechanics, which was also worked on steadily through this time period. It is still pursued today, but unfortunately, we will not look at quantum mechanics in this paper. VIII. Fission Frederic Joliot (1900 1958) and Irene Curie (1897 1956), his wife, were performing experiments in 1931 with polonium, which had been discovered by her mother, Marie Curie. Their experiments produced very strange results; literal transmutations of elements were occurring at the atomic level for which they could not account. They published these results on January 18, 1932. When Chadwick saw the report he repeated the experiments, using additional elements, and proved that the radiation contained a neutral particle whose mass was approximate to that of a proton. He called it a neutron in a report sent to Nature on February 17, 1932. Continuing his work found that slow moving neutrons were more apt at producing these transmutations than protons. When he received the Nobel Prize in 1935, he discoursed on the usefulness of the neutron as a catalyst to fission. A small excerpt from his lecture follows. The great effectiveness of the neutron in producing nuclear transmutations is not difficult to explain. In the collisions of a charged particle with a nucleus, the chance of entry is limited by the Coulomb forces between the particle and the nucleus; these impose a minimum distance of approach which increases with the atomic number of the nucleus and soon becomes so large that the chance of the particle entering the nucleus is very small. In the case of collisions of a neutron with the nucleus there is no limitation of this kind. The force between a neutron and a nucleus is inappreciable except at very small distances, when it increases very rapidly and is attractive. Instead of the potential wall in the case of the charged particle, the neutron encounters a potential hole. Thus even neutrons of very small energy can penetrate into the nucleus. Indeed slow neutrons may be enormously more effective than fast neutrons, for they spend a longer time in the nucleus. (Weaver, 733) As stated in the quote, slow moving neutrons have a greater incidence of affecting the nuclei of the material than fast moving neutrons. By bombarding of the elements, and determining the reactions that took place, physicists found the neutron to proton ratio of a wide range of these elements. They also found that the neutron to proton ratio increased as the number of protons in the nucleus increased. The element with the most protons known at the time was uranium. It has 92 protons and 146 neutrons. (It is usually known as uranium-238. ) Bombarding uranium yielded the most spectacular results yet. The uranium atom was actually split into two atoms of approximately the same size and fission was accomplished. This released significant amounts of energy. It was found that an isotope of uranium, uranium-235, easily fissioned with slow neutrons to yield krypton and barium. Taylor, 353) Unfortunately, uranium-235 is found in naturally occurring uranium only about 1 part in 137. Extracting it is not an easy process. (Segre, From X-rays , 210) This provides the last piece of information needed to deduce the possibility of an atomic bomb. IX. Sustained Reactions The Atomic Bomb In 1940, Otto Frisch and Rudolph Peierls posed an important question. From Nuclear Fear, we may read this question. Exactly what would happen, they asked themselves, if you could cull from natural uranium a mass composed purely of the rare uranium-235? Bohr and others had told the public that there could be enough energy there to blow up a city, but nobody had worked it out as a serious technical possibility. Now Frisch and Peierls realized that with fissionable uranium-235 atoms all crammed together, there would be no need for a moderator to slow the neutrons down, since even the fast neutrons emitted in each fission would have a good chance to provoke another fission. The whole chain reaction would go so swiftly that, before the mass had a chance to blow itself apart, a run away many of the uranium-235 atoms split and release energy. (Weart, 84) This question may have been left academic for years had it not been for World War II. As the awesome power of an atomic bomb was realized by leaders of several countries, a race began to be the first to make a working bomb. As a result, a simpler method was discovered than separating uranium-235 from uranium-238. This simpler method starts when uranium-238 absorbs a single neutron a new element, called neptunium-239, is created. (Neptunium-239 has 93 protons and 146 neutrons. ) This element decays into plutonium-239 (94 protons and 145 neutrons). Plutonium is stable and also has the property of undergoing fission with slow neutrons. Hence, the atom bomb was conceivable. Plutonium was produced in a reactor. (Weart, 87) The United States was one of the nations was one of the countries searching for the technology to make the atomic bomb a reality. On July 16, 1945, they succeeded when the first atomic bomb was detonated. In an isolated spot named Alamogordo, moments before first light , night exploded noiselessly into day. Searing colors gold, purple, blue, violet, gray illuminated everything in sight. From the floor of the desert, a ball of fire rose like the sun (only brighter, one report read, equal to several suns in midday). Thirty seconds later came a blast of burning air, followed almost instantaneously by an awesome roar. A cloud the shape of an immense mushroom ascended nearly eight miles, was caught by the desert winds, and curled into a giant question mark. (Stoff, 1) This was the realization of a long trek through history. Thought and experiment combined with field theory, a knowledge of chemical properties of the elements, and the discovery of radioactivity. This gave people the ability to answer the question: What is the structure of the atom? Not only was the structure determined, but it was found that the number of protons and neutrons could change. Protons and neutrons together are known as nucleons particles that inhabit the nucleus. ) Changing the number of nucleons has several names: radioactivity, fission and fusion according to how the atom is changing and what is causing the change. Generally energy is released as a result of this change. Using Einsteins bold statement that E=mc^2, the nature of this energy became known. The energy is a direct conversion from part of the mass of the atom. As we saw, it was a short technological step to use the same source of energy for the sun, as a source of energy on the earth.