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cloud chamber
noun
: a vessel containing air saturated with water vapor whose sudden expansion reveals the passage of an ionizing particle by a trail of visible droplets
Examples of cloud chamber in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Tracking lines arc through the expansive field, recalling cosmic rays shooting across a cloud chamber.
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Christopher Knight, Los Angeles Times, 29 Oct. 2024
Those were the cosmic rays Hess detected and are the ones most likely to show up in a museum cloud chamber.
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Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 23 Nov. 2023
The photograph above shows a positron's path traveling through a cloud chamber as photographed by Anderson.
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Discover Magazine, 1 Sep. 2010
Those were the cosmic rays Hess detected, and are the ones most likely to show up in a museum cloud chamber.
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Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 23 Nov. 2023
The first cloud chamber was devised by physicist Charles Thomas Rees Wilson in 1895 to reproduce the airborne puffs and study their behavior.
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Bill Gourgey, Popular Science, 23 Nov. 2023
In a recent email exchange, Coppola described watching particles produced by nuclear decay fly through a Wilson cloud chamber.
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Michael Alberty | For The Oregonian/oregonlive, oregonlive, 4 Jan. 2022
The cloud chamber in Gilbert’s atomic lab contains a wire coated with polonium-210, the radioactive compound used to poison ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko.
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Michael Alberty | For The Oregonian/oregonlive, oregonlive, 4 Jan. 2022
As for the Partch, it was played by Partch, guitarist John Schneider’s ensemble dedicated to re-creating the art-object Partch instruments — the cloud chamber bowls, the exotic massive marimbas and the like.
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Mark Swed, latimes.com, 17 June 2018
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Word History
First Known Use
1897, in the meaning defined above
Dictionary Entries Near cloud chamber
Cite this Entry
“Cloud chamber.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cloud%20chamber. Accessed 7 Feb. 2025.
Kids Definition
cloud chamber
noun
: a container of air saturated with water vapor whose sudden cooling reveals the path of an ionizing particle (as an electron) by a trail of visible droplets
More from Merriam-Webster on cloud chamber
Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about cloud chamber
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