[time-nuts] Lifetime of Cesium tube

Chuck Harris cfharris at erols.com
Thu May 12 23:40:18 EDT 2005


Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:
> In message <4284104E.9080204 at erols.com>, Chuck Harris writes:
> 
>>Hi Poul-Hemming,
>>
>>One neutral Cesium atom is a molecule by definition because it
>>is the smallest possible unit that contains all of the properties
>>of Cesium metal in bulk.
> 
> 
> I was brought up to belive that it took at least two atoms to make
> a molecule.

Then you cannot have a molecule of iron, gold, silver...  In any case,
it is just mincing words.  I don't believe that anyone, myself included,
believed that when I said a Cesium molecule that I was discussing anything
other than the metal Cesium.

If the C-beam standard had been invented in an era other than the "atomic age",
it probably would have been called something other than an atomic standard.

-Chuck




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