Wednesday 9 April 2014

Another theory blown up

This afternoon, duty done at the convention, I escaped to breathe some fresh air and get some Vitamin D and exercise, so I walked from McCormick Place (the flat white building at the top right) all the way to the Willis Tower, which is what you're meant to call the Sears Tower these days, where this photo was taken, and then back to the Hilton, which is that triple brick building catching the sun in the photo. I didn't actually mean to walk all that way, but my dimness continues and I couldn't find a station to take the El, although I was walking right along the line.

Never mind, it was good to be out walking on a sunny afternoon, looking at all the fine buildings - very pretty wooden homes all in a line, super-grand Library, the backdrop of skyscrapers that are starting to become familiar - and at the people. Black kids playing basketball on a street corner, cool dudes skimming past on bikes, fat ladies waddling, beggars offering blessings in the hope of spare change, a friendly young guy promoting Greenpeace.
And then I went up the Tower, 103 floors, tallest in the Western Hemisphere ( ~ ) to have my photo taken standing on the glass ledge with tiny people scuttling along the pavement so very far below. No biggie. What was more disturbing was reading a story board claiming that the atomic age began in 1942 when some scientists at Chicago University set off a chain reaction: "the initial step in building the nuclear bomb".

So, nothing to do with Sir Ernest Rutherford beginning his work towards splitting the atom in the basement of Canterbury University in 1917, then?

2 comments:

the queen said...

I think Chicago is where they set off the chain reaction.

TravelSkite said...

Yes it is. What I'm disputing is that use of the definite article. The chain reaction was one of the steps, not the first, which was splitting the atom.

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