While the Earth Shook

He had just finished making a new portable seismograph, designed to record the earth vibrations caused by dynamite explosions. That was last spring. Like most Americans, Harvard's Professor L. Don Leet had never heard of the Manhattan Project. But in June, the professor was tapped lightly on the shoulder and spirited away to New Mexico. There his new gadget went to work recording the biggest man-made explosion in history.

Last week it was finally admitted: the atomic bomb proved a seismological smash-hit. It shook the earth for 20 seconds, and some of the waves it started were entirely new to seismologists. Professor Leet calls them "hydrodynamic waves." While they were passing, the particles of earth moved up, forward, down and back, very much like particles of water on the surface of a wave-tossed sea.

Professor Leet saw a few more scientifically interesting things while the earth trembled, but he can't tell about all of them yet. Says he: "The Army security regulations have me shell-shocked."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.