Mighty Atom

To split the mighty atom All mankind was intent. Now any day the atom may Return the compliment. 

Lewellen, John. The Mighty Atom, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, 1955. 

The Mighty Atom (1959), which also appeared as a popular cartoon under the same name, helped popularize the figure of "Reddy Kilowatt." Kilowatt came complete with an upbeat message, a full-fledged "Fusion song," and assorted doggerel ... 

Cover of Mighty Atom 1 (IW Enterprises, 1963 reprint). Created by Osamu Tezuka—the artist who virtually invented the Japanese manga industry—Mighty Atom (a.k.a. Astro Boy in the United States) reflected the concerns of post-World War 11 Japan, including anxieties over the atom. 

The mole is a unit that helps chemists relate the incredibly small size of an atom to the incredibly large number of atoms that chemists must deal with on a daily basis. Meet the mighty mole in this part. 

Everywhere researchers close to the problem realized this need. A friendly yet spirited race had already begun in many laboratories of the world to build mighty armaments—new atomic siege guns which would hurl thunderbolts of staggering power to shatter the tiny nucleus into fragments that could be picked up and studied. 

When he suggested that the liaison between atoms that constitute a molecule could be formulated in terms of directed bonds, van t Hoff encountered serious opposition. It is all the more remarkable how his ideas later became so firmly embedded in chemical thinking that even the mighty quantum theory has so far failed to have a visible impact on this classical model. In fact, van t Hoffs model, although largely incompatible with quantum theory, managed to entrench itself in a guise that resembles that theory. 

He was willing to be impressed by a mighty progress of industry. The work on atomic energy in the USA and in England proved to have advanced much further than my father had expected, Aage Bohr understates. Robert Oppenheimer pitches his summary closer to the shock of surprise a refugee released from the suspended animation that had been occupied Denmark would have felt To Bohr the enterprises in the United States seemed completely fantastic. ... 

The mighty and mysterious quantum theory explains the interaction of light and matter in terms of well-defined energy states that characterize an atom or molecule. When the atom or molecule absorbs energy to enter a higher energy state, the energy used is... 

The much smaller British comics industry introduced its own version of atomic heroes around the same time. The Atomic Age Comic (1947) featured "Atomic Tommy, the Bullet Proof Spy Smasher." This was soon followed by Atomic Comic and the weekly adventures of Mar-velman, whose alter ego had only to say "Kimota" before a lightning flash of atomic power turned him into mighty Marvelman. The British superhero was no fool. When faced with a villain firing an atomic bazooka, he astutely observed, "Now that s a nasty weapon." Simultaneously, the Adventures of Captain Atom (1950) boasted that its stories were based on "scientific facts and theories." ... 

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