Science: Good & Bad Atoms

Two atom men last week took hard, scientific looks at the future. One envisioned happier times ahead; the other, from. where he sat, could see doomsday.

The Wheels Whir. In Manhattan, Dr. J. A. Hutcheson, associate director of Westinghouse Research Laboratories, pondered the question that fascinates power engineers. "We can get power out of uranium," said Dr. Hutcheson, "but we don't know how to reduce it to usable, practical form."

The only schemes proposed thus far have substituted a chain-reacting pile for the furnace of an ordinary powerhouse. The pile's heat will generate steam to run a turbine. But this, thinks Dr. Hutcheson,...