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Manhattan Project

(Encyclopedia)Manhattan Project, the wartime effort to design and build the first nuclear weapons (atomic bombs). With the discovery of fission in 1939, it became clear to scientists that certain radioactive materi...

Richland

(Encyclopedia)Richland, city (1990 pop. 32,315), Benton co., S Wash., at the confluence of the Columbia and Yakima rivers, in an irrigated farm and vineyard region; inc. 1958. It is the headquarters of the U.S. Dep...

Argonne National Laboratory

(Encyclopedia)Argonne National Laboratory, research center, based in Argonne, Ill., 27 mi (43 km) SW of downtown Chicago, with other facilities at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, 50 mi (80 km) W of Idaho...

uranium

(Encyclopedia)uranium yo͞orāˈnēəm [key], radioactive metallic chemical element; symbol U; at. no. 92; mass number of most stable isotope 238; m.p. 1,132℃; b.p. 3,818℃; sp. gr. 19.1 at 25℃; valence +3, +4...

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

(Encyclopedia)Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at Cambridge; coeducational; chartered 1861, opened 1865 in Boston, moved 1916. It has long been recognized as an outstanding technological institute and its Slo...

steamship

(Encyclopedia)steamship, watercraft propelled by a steam engine or a steam turbine. Despite such innovations as turbo-electric drive, which converts steam energy into rotational power for turning the propeller...

magnetohydrodynamics

(Encyclopedia)magnetohydrodynamics măgnēˌtōhīˌdrōdīnămˈĭks [key], study of the motions of electrically conducting fluids and their interactions with magnetic fields. The principles of magnetohydrodynamic...

Seaborg, Glenn Theodore

(Encyclopedia)Seaborg, Glenn Theodore sēˈbôrg [key], 1912–99, American chemist, b. Ishpeming, Mich., grad. Univ. of California at Los Angeles, 1934, Ph.D. Univ. of California at Berkeley, 1937. In 1939, he beg...

Savannah, river, United States

(Encyclopedia)Savannah, river, 314 mi (505 km) long, formed by the confluence of the Tugaloo and Seneca rivers and flowing SE to the Atlantic Ocean; with the Tugaloo it forms the entire S.C.–Ga. boundary. Savanna...

International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War

(Encyclopedia)International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), worldwide organization of medical groups dedicated to eliminating nuclear weapons and preventing nuclear war, est. 1980. Based in Ca...