A couple with three children waited in line at San Francisco's Pier 41 to purchase tickets for a boat trip to Alcatraz. Others watched with varying degrees of sympathy and irritation as the young children fidgeted, whined, and punched one another. The frazzled parents reprimanded them to no avail.
Finally they reached the ticket window. "Five tickets, please," the father said. "Two round trip, three one way."
Joseph G(ilbert) HoffmanDied 9 Dec 1974 at age 65 (born 19 Aug 1909).American physicist and biophysicist who brought atomic isotopes into the battle against cancer. During WW II, he developed a radio proximity fuse and later was a health-physics scientist with "Manhattan Project." Hoffman studied nine accident victims of radiation disease at Los Alamos in Aug 1945 and May 1946. This research revealed for the first time that atoms of living human tissue could be transformed into radioactive atoms. He recognized "a completely new approach to studying the metabolism of atoms in living tissue and a new way of probing the complicated system of gene cells that determine heredity," and such knowledge was indispensable to understanding the mysteries of cancer research in which he engaged for the rest of his life.« |
