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Herman Postma
Herman Postma (March 29, 1933 – November 7, 2004) was an American scientist and educational leader. Born in Wilmington, North Carolina, he moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in 1959 after attending Duke University, Duke, Harvard University, Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT. Much of Postma's career was at Oak Ridge National Laboratory where he served as Laboratory Director from 1974 to 1988. Early life Postma was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, on March 29, 1933, to Netherlands, Dutch farmers Gilbert and Sophia Postma. His father did not finish seventh grade and his mother did not finish high school, however, he described his father as "very inventive" when fixing problems on the family farm. Education Postma had a passion for education, not only his own but for providing it to others. During his time at New Hanover High School he was inspired by his teachers, particularly his algebra teacher. Postma graduated from high school in 1951 moving immediately to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wilmington, North Carolina
Wilmington is a port city in and the county seat of New Hanover County in coastal southeastern North Carolina, United States. With a population of 115,451 at the 2020 census, it is the eighth most populous city in the state. Wilmington is the principal city of the Wilmington Metropolitan Statistical Area, a metropolitan area that includes New Hanover and Pender counties in southeastern North Carolina, which had a population of 301,284 at the 2020 census. Its historic downtown has a Riverwalk, developed as a tourist attraction in the late 20th century. In 2014, Wilmington's riverfront was ranked as the "Best American Riverfront" by readers of ''USA Today''. The National Trust for Historic Preservation selected Wilmington as one of its 2008 Dozen Distinctive Destinations. City residents live between the Cape Fear river and the Atlantic ocean, with four nearby beach communities just outside Wilmington: Fort Fisher, Wrightsville Beach, Carolina Beach and Kure Beach, all wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neutral Beam Injection
Neutral-beam injection (NBI) is one method used to heat plasma inside a fusion device consisting in a beam of high-energy neutral particles that can enter the magnetic confinement field. When these neutral particles are ionized by collision with the plasma particles, they are kept in the plasma by the confining magnetic field and can transfer most of their energy by further collisions with the plasma. By tangential injection in the torus, neutral beams also provide momentum to the plasma and current drive, one essential feature for long pulses of burning plasmas. Neutral-beam injection is a flexible and reliable technique, which has been the main heating system on a large variety of fusion devices. To date, all NBI systems were based on positive precursor ion beams. In the 1990s there has been impressive progress in negative ion sources and accelerators with the construction of multi-megawatt negative-ion-based NBI systems at LHD (H0, 180 keV) and JT-60U (D0, 500 keV). T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hart Senate Office Building
The Philip A. Hart Senate Office Building is the third U.S. Senate office building, and is located on 2nd Street NE between Constitution Avenue NE and C Street NE in Washington, D.C., in the United States. Construction began in January 1975, and it was first occupied in November 1982. Rapidly rising construction costs plagued the building, creating several scandals. The structure is named for Philip Hart, who served 18 years as a senator from Michigan. Accessed via a spur of the United States Capitol Subway System, the building features a nine-story atrium dominated by massive artwork, and a large Central Hearing Facility which provides television facilities as well as extensive seating. Design and construction The Dirksen Senate Office Building was intended to occupy the entire block bounded by 1st Street NE, Constitution Avenue NE, 2nd Street NE, and C Street NE. However, due to the resource and financial demands of the Korean War, the building was scaled back and occupied on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Segway PT
The Segway is a two-wheeled, self-balancing personal transporter invented by Dean Kamen and brought to market in 2001 as the Segway HT, subsequently as the Segway PT, and manufactured by Segway Inc. ''HT'' is an initialism for "human transporter" and ''PT'' for "personal transporter." Ninebot, a Beijing-based transportation robotics startup rival, acquired Segway Inc. in April 2015, broadened the company to include other transportation devices, and announced in June 2020 it would no longer make a two-wheeled, self-balancing product. History Independent company The Segway PT, referred to during development and initial marketing as the Segway HT, was developed from the self-balancing iBOT wheelchair which was initially developed at University of Plymouth, in conjunction with BAE Systems and Sumitomo Precision Products. Segway's first patent was filed in 1994 and granted in 1997, followed by others, including one submitted in June 1999 and granted in October 2001. Prior to i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Muscular Dystrophy
Muscular dystrophies (MD) are a genetically and clinically heterogeneous group of rare neuromuscular diseases that cause progressive weakness and breakdown of skeletal muscles over time. The disorders differ as to which muscles are primarily affected, the degree of weakness, how fast they worsen, and when symptoms begin. Some types are also associated with problems in other organs. Over 30 different disorders are classified as muscular dystrophies. Of those, Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) accounts for approximately 50% of cases and affects males beginning around the age of four. Other relatively common muscular dystrophies include Becker muscular dystrophy, facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy, and myotonic dystrophy, whereas limb–girdle muscular dystrophy and congenital muscular dystrophy are themselves groups of several – usually ultrarare – genetic disorders. Muscular dystrophies are caused by mutations in genes, usually those involved in making muscle proteins. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martin Marietta
The Martin Marietta Corporation was an American company founded in 1961 through the merger of Glenn L. Martin Company and American-Marietta Corporation. In 1995, it merged with Lockheed Corporation to form Lockheed Martin. History Martin Marietta formed in 1961 by the merger of the Glenn L. Martin Company and American-Marietta Corporation. Martin, based in Baltimore, was primarily an aerospace concern with a recent focus on missiles, namely its Titan program. American-Marietta was headquartered in Chicago and produced paints, dyes, metallurgical products, construction materials, and other goods. In 1982, Martin Marietta was subject to a hostile takeover bid by the Bendix Corporation, headed by William Agee. Bendix bought the majority of Martin Marietta shares and in effect owned the company. However, Martin Marietta's management used the short time separating ownership and control to sell non-core businesses and launch its own hostile takeover of Bendix (known as the Pac-Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Department Of Energy
The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United States. The DOE oversees the U.S. nuclear weapons program, nuclear reactor production for the United States Navy, energy-related research, and domestic energy production and energy conservation. The DOE was created in 1977 in the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis. It sponsors more physical science research than any other U.S. federal agency, the majority of which is conducted through its system of National Laboratories. The DOE also directs research in genomics, with the Human Genome Project originating from a DOE initiative. The department is headed by the Secretary of Energy, who reports directly to the president of the United States and is a member of the Cabinet. The current Secretary of Energy is Jennifer Granholm, who has served ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Energy Research And Development Administration
The United States Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) was a United States government organization formed from the split of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in 1975. It assumed the functions of the AEC not assumed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The agency was created as part of the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, which was passed on October 11, 1974, in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis. The act split the Atomic Energy Commission into two new agencies: the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would government regulation, regulate the commercial nuclear power industry, while the ERDA would manage the energy research and development, nuclear weapons, and naval reactors programs. The Energy Research and Development Administration was established on January 19, 1975. The first administrator was Robert Seamans, followed by Robert Fri, Robert W. Fri. In 1977, ERDA was merged with the Federal Energy Administration to form the U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Atomic Energy Commission
The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by U.S. Congress to foster and control the peacetime development of atomic science and technology. President Harry S. Truman signed the McMahon/Atomic Energy Act on August 1, 1946, transferring the control of atomic energy from military to civilian hands, effective on January 1, 1947. This shift gave the members of the AEC complete control of the plants, laboratories, equipment, and personnel assembled during the war to produce the atomic bomb. An increasing number of critics during the 1960s charged that the AEC's regulations were insufficiently rigorous in several important areas, including radiation protection standards, nuclear reactor safety, plant siting, and environmental protection. By 1974, the AEC's regulatory programs had come under such strong attack that the U.S. Congress decided to abolish the AEC. The AEC was abolished by the Ener ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Fission
Nuclear fission is a reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into two or more smaller nuclei. The fission process often produces gamma photons, and releases a very large amount of energy even by the energetic standards of radioactive decay. Nuclear fission of heavy elements was discovered on Monday 19 December 1938, by German chemist Otto Hahn and his assistant Fritz Strassmann in cooperation with Austrian-Swedish physicist Lise Meitner. Hahn understood that a "burst" of the atomic nuclei had occurred. Meitner explained it theoretically in January 1939 along with her nephew Otto Robert Frisch. Frisch named the process by analogy with biological fission of living cells. For heavy nuclides, it is an exothermic reaction which can release large amounts of energy both as electromagnetic radiation and as kinetic energy of the fragments (heating the bulk material where fission takes place). Like nuclear fusion, for fission to produce energy, the total binding energy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Fusion
Nuclear fusion is a reaction in which two or more atomic nuclei are combined to form one or more different atomic nuclei and subatomic particles ( neutrons or protons). The difference in mass between the reactants and products is manifested as either the release or absorption of energy. This difference in mass arises due to the difference in nuclear binding energy between the atomic nuclei before and after the reaction. Nuclear fusion is the process that powers active or main-sequence stars and other high-magnitude stars, where large amounts of energy are released. A nuclear fusion process that produces atomic nuclei lighter than iron-56 or nickel-62 will generally release energy. These elements have a relatively small mass and a relatively large binding energy per nucleon. Fusion of nuclei lighter than these releases energy (an exothermic process), while the fusion of heavier nuclei results in energy retained by the product nucleons, and the resulting reaction is endo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory that designed the actual bombs. The Army component of the project was designated the Manhattan District as its first headquarters were in Manhattan; the placename gradually superseded the official codename, Development of Substitute Materials, for the entire project. Along the way, the project absorbed its earlier British counterpart, Tube Alloys. The Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939, but grew to employ more than 130,000 people and cost nearly US$2 billion (equivalent to about $ billion in ). Over 90 percent of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
