Anachronism in Molly's World

[BasenjiMama]

Weeellll, maybe. (Where's my "sceptical" smilie??) [img]wink.gif[/img]

It could mean "really little brakes" like you say, but I still think it's a mistake. LOL!

[BasenjiMama]

On page 16, under the heading "Playtime in Wartime", there is a picture of a little metal wind-up car with a soldier in it. Right on the car in yellow letters it says "Atomic Brakes". What? How can anything be "atomic" before the end of WWII?

And what the heck are "atomic brakes" anyway? [img]wink.gif[/img]

[moderator]

Jane, I was told that my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather had atomic breaks on his automobile during Felicity's time. So I don't think it would be unusual for a toy to have these by the time Molly was nine or ten years old. I'm kidding! But the word "atomic" has been around since the 1600s...so maybe it meant something different than its current meaning? Like "teeny tiny brakes" for teeny tiny people: [img]graemlins/person.gif[/img]

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ March 17, 2003 12:46 AM: Message edited by: Melissa ]</font>

[Chris H]

Apart from the fact that the atom was first knowingly split sometime in 1917 then again in the 30s artificially, atomic theory has been around since the 1800s (which even surprised me when I found that out).

Chris H (And I'm not wearing a labcoat, honest.)

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ March 17, 2003 04:00 PM: Message edited by: Chris H ]</font>

[BasenjiMama]

Yes, BUT, the term "atomic" wasn't in general use 'til after WWII and the use of nuclear weapons, when it had a brief life as a fad term used to indicate anything futuristic and advanced - toys with "atomic brakes" printed on the side are a perfect example of that. I'm stickin' with my opinion that the little jeep in the book is from after WWII.

[Kelly Kelly]

I'm going to get my book. Be right back. OK I have it WATCH JOE GO! I do not really know about that one. I will research it on the net. I have never heard of ATOMIC BRAKES. Kelly

[BasenjiMama]

Well, if you do a google search on "atomic brakes", you get this, which shows the jeep in a different angle. I didn't see before that it says "G I Joe" on the front of the car.

I emailed the dealer to ask the age of the toy.

[moderator]

I checked my copy of the book--you have eagle eyes, Jane! I would have never noticed it. I checked the credits and they didn't yield any information on the toy's date. I have access to the Oxford English Dictionary through another account, so I'm going to log off and see if I can find out what "atomic" meant during Molly's time. My other dictionary just says that it meant very small.

Wonder if AG will give you a reward for finding a boo-boo? [img]wink.gif[/img]

OK, just got back (they connect me at 28.8--eek!). Anyway, if it has to do with *weight*, then it might make sense. Here's a quote from the Oxford English Dictionary:

1942 J. D. STRANATHAN Particles v. 169 Results obtained with the new mass spectrograph..made it certain that atomic weights are in general not quite whole numbers; but they are very close to whole numbers. Ibid. 182 It is rather fortunate that 99?76% of all O is of atomic weight 16.

If it has to do with being bomb-related, then it probably doesn't fit! It will be intesting to find out the date on the toy--I hope you get a reply. [img]smile.gif[/img]

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ March 18, 2003 12:00 AM: Message edited by: Melissa ]</font>

[annkirstin]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Melissa:
if it has to do with *weight*, then it might make sense.</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't know if you know what they mean by atomic weight, Melissa, but it wouldn't seem to apply here. Atomic weight means how many protons & neutrons are in an atom. Of course, that must be a whole number, but since atoms come in isotopes, which means differing amounts of neutrons, not all atoms of an element have the same weight. So to come up with the average atomic weight they take each isotope and multiply it by the percentage of atoms of that element that are of that isotope, and then add them all together. For example, since your definition mentioned that 99.76% of all oxygen atoms have a weight of 16 (8 protons + 8 neutrons), then .24% of all oxygen atoms have some other weight (always 8 protons but a different number of neutrons). So they multiply .9976 x 16 and add it to .0024 x (whatever # other isotope(s) are) to get 15.9994 as the atomic weight for oxygen.

I'm sorry if you already knew that, of if you didn't want to know! [img]tongue.gif[/img] I know it's a little technical, but I did want to explain exactly what it is you had found.

[moderator]

Ann, no I didn't know what I had found--I'm a science nitwit. [img]wink.gif[/img] I only meant that the date matched up and that it appeared to be a term used in the 1940s pre-atomic bomb. My normal dictionary says that atomic just meant "really small" back then, so I wonder if it meant "really small breaks" on a really small car. It will be interesting to find out. Jane found a real mystery!