Giant Voltage May Blast Atom (Mar, 1933)

Giant Voltage May Blast Atom

Man-made lightning will soon flash in a blimp hangar at South Dartmouth, Mass., where a fantastic machine to harness the power of 10,000,000 volts is nearing completion. Sitting inside one of its two hollow spheres of aluminum, nearly fifteen feet in diameter, an operator will apply the huge voltage to a vacuum tube. Though his body will be charged to the same voltage as the spheres, he will be as safe as though he stood a mile away. Scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology will use the big generator in an attempt to blast atoms to pieces. The striking photograph reproduced here gives an impression of the machine’s proportions. Whirling endless belts of silk pile up charges of electricity on the spheres by a new principle, which the inventor demonstrated a year ago.