[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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