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Letters

A Reader Answers: 'Critical Mass' Origin

May 2004, page 18

Cameron Reed asked about the origin of the term "critical mass" (Physics Today, January 2004, page 14). A search of the full text database of the NASA Astrophysics Data System (http://ads.harvard.edu) shows that "critical mass" was first mentioned in 1919, in volume 31 of the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, page 121. An article by Hugo Benioff attributes the term to Arthur Eddington, who "singled out a critical mass—one at which a vital change of condition takes place."

Guenther Eichhorn
Michael J. Kurtz
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
Cambridge, Massachusetts
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