Atomium Culture
The Atomium ( , , ) is a landmark Modern architecture, modernist building in Brussels, Belgium, originally constructed as the centrepiece of the 1958 Brussels World's Fair (Expo 58). Designed by the engineer André Waterkeyn and the architects :fr:André et Jean Polak, André and Jean Polak as a tribute to scientific progress, as well as to symbolise Belgian engineering skills at the time, it is located on the Heysel Plateau, Heysel/Heizel Plateau in Laeken (northern part of the City of Brussels), where the exhibition took place. It is the city's most popular tourist attraction, and serves as a museum, an art centre and a cultural destination. The Atomium stands tall, making it one of the List of tallest structures in Belgium, tallest structures in Belgium. Its nine stainless steel clad spheres are connected in the shape of a Crystal structure#Unit cell, unit cell that could represent an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times. Steel tubes connecting the spheres enclose stair ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Laeken
(French language, French, ) or (Dutch language, Dutch, ) is a residential suburb in the north-western part of the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium. It belongs to the List of municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, municipality of the City of Brussels and is mostly identified by the Belgian postal code: 1020. Prior to 1921, it was a separate municipality. Toponymy Etymology The name ''Laeken'' () derives from the Germanic ''Lacha'' or ''Lache'' ("water", "lake"), because the Molenbeek brook at the time formed a network of ponds at this height. The oldest mention of the village is in a diploma from 1080, where the name ''Gilbert de Lacha'' appears. There is also the mention ''Lachus'' in 1117. Main sights Royal Palace The Palace of Laeken, Royal Palace of Laeken, official home of the Monarchy of Belgium, Belgian royal family, is situated in Laeken. The palace was built in 1782–1784 by the French architect and urbanist Charles de Wailly. It was partly destroyed b ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Escalator
An escalator is a moving staircase which carries people between floors of a building or structure. It consists of a Electric motor, motor-driven chain of individually linked steps on a track which cycle on a pair of tracks which keep the step tread horizontal. Escalators are often used around the world in places where elevator, lifts would be impractical, or they can be used in conjunction with them. Principal areas of usage include department stores, shopping malls, airports, list of transit systems, transit systems (railway/railroad stations), convention centers, hotels, arenas, stadiums and public buildings. Escalators have the capacity to move large numbers of people. They have no waiting interval (except during very heavy traffic). They can be used to guide people toward main exits or special exhibits and may be weatherproofed for outdoor use. A non-functional escalator can function as a normal staircase, whereas many other methods of transport become useless when they ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Belgian Congo
The Belgian Congo (, ; ) was a Belgian colonial empire, Belgian colony in Central Africa from 1908 until independence in 1960 and became the Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville). The former colony adopted its present name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in 1964. Colonization of the Congo Basin, Colonial rule in the Congo began in the late 19th century. Leopold II of the Belgians, King Leopold II of the Belgians attempted to persuade the Federal Government of Belgium, Belgian government to support colonial expansion around the then-largely unexploited Congo Basin. Their ambivalence resulted in Leopold establishing a colony himself. With support from a number of Berlin Conference, Western countries, Leopold achieved international recognition of the Congo Free State in 1885. By the turn of the century, the violence used by Free State officials against indigenous Congolese and a ruthless system of economic exploitation led to intense diplomatic pressure on Belgium to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Uranium
Uranium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium radioactive decay, radioactively decays, usually by emitting an alpha particle. The half-life of this decay varies between 159,200 and 4.5 billion years for different isotopes of uranium, isotopes, making them useful for dating the age of the Earth. The most common isotopes in natural uranium are uranium-238 (which has 146 neutrons and accounts for over 99% of uranium on Earth) and uranium-235 (which has 143 neutrons). Uranium has the highest atomic weight of the primordial nuclide, primordially occurring elements. Its density is about 70% higher than that of lead and slightly lower than that of gold or tungsten. It occurs naturally in low concentrations of a few Parts-per notation#Parts-per expressions, parts per million in soil, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nuclear Physics
Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter. Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the atom as a whole, including its electrons. Discoveries in nuclear physics have led to applications in many fields such as nuclear power, nuclear weapons, nuclear medicine and magnetic resonance imaging, industrial and agricultural isotopes, ion implantation in materials engineering, and radiocarbon dating in geology and archaeology. Such applications are studied in the field of nuclear engineering. Particle physics evolved out of nuclear physics and the two fields are typically taught in close association. Nuclear astrophysics, the application of nuclear physics to astrophysics, is crucial in explaining the inner workings of stars and the origin of the chemical elements. History The history of nuclear physics as a discipline ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Atomic Age
The Atomic Age, also known as the Atomic Era, is the period of history following the detonation of the first nuclear weapon, The Gadget at the '' Trinity'' test in New Mexico on 16 July 1945 during World War II. Although nuclear chain reactions had been hypothesized in 1933 and the first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction ( Chicago Pile-1) had taken place in December 1942, the Trinity test and the ensuing bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World WarII represented the first large-scale use of nuclear technology and ushered in profound changes in sociopolitical thinking and the course of technological development. While atomic power was promoted for a time as the epitome of progress and modernity, entering into the nuclear power era also entailed frightful implications of nuclear warfare, the Cold War, mutual assured destruction, nuclear proliferation, the risk of nuclear disaster (potentially as extreme as anthropogenic global nuclear wint ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Multilingualism
Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all Europeans claim to speak at least one language other than their mother tongue; but many read and write in one language. Being multilingual is advantageous for people wanting to participate in trade, globalization and cultural openness. Owing to the ease of access to information facilitated by the Internet, individuals' exposure to multiple languages has become increasingly possible. People who speak several languages are also called '' polyglots''. Multilingual speakers have acquired and maintained at least one language during childhood, the so-called first language (L1). The first language (sometimes also referred to as the mother tongue) is usually acquired without formal ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Aluminium
Aluminium (or aluminum in North American English) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Al and atomic number 13. It has a density lower than that of other common metals, about one-third that of steel. Aluminium has a great affinity towards oxygen, passivation (chemistry), forming a protective layer of aluminium oxide, oxide on the surface when exposed to air. It visually resembles silver, both in its color and in its great ability to reflect light. It is soft, magnetism, nonmagnetic, and ductility, ductile. It has one stable isotope, 27Al, which is highly abundant, making aluminium the abundance of the chemical elements, 12th-most abundant element in the universe. The radioactive decay, radioactivity of aluminium-26, 26Al leads to it being used in radiometric dating. Chemically, aluminium is a post-transition metal in the boron group; as is common for the group, aluminium forms compounds primarily in the +3 oxidation state. The aluminium cation Al3+ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Atom
Atoms are the basic particles of the chemical elements. An atom consists of a atomic nucleus, nucleus of protons and generally neutrons, surrounded by an electromagnetically bound swarm of electrons. The chemical elements are distinguished from each other by the number of protons that are in their atoms. For example, any atom that contains 11 protons is sodium, and any atom that contains 29 protons is copper. Atoms with the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons are called isotopes of the same element. Atoms are extremely small, typically around 100 picometers across. A human hair is about a million carbon atoms wide. Atoms are smaller than the shortest wavelength of visible light, which means humans cannot see atoms with conventional microscopes. They are so small that accurately predicting their behavior using classical physics is not possible due to quantum mechanics, quantum effects. More than 99.94% of an atom's mass is in the nucleus. Protons hav ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Portmanteau
In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.Garner's Modern American Usage p. 644. English examples include '' smog'', coined by blending ''smoke'' and ''fog'', and '''', from ''motor'' ('' motorist'') and ''hotel''. A blend is similar to a [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Brussels Metro
The Brussels Metro ( ; ) is a rapid transit system serving a large part of the Brussels-Capital Region of Belgium. It consists of four conventional metro lines and three '' premetro'' lines. The metro-grade lines are M1, M2, M5, and M6 with some shared sections, covering a total of , with 59 metro-only stations. The ''premetro'' network consists of three tram lines ( T4, T7, and T10) that partly travel over underground sections that were intended to be eventually converted into metro lines. Underground stations in the ''premetro'' network use the same design as metro stations. A few short underground tramway sections exist, so there is a total of of underground metro and tram network. There are a total of 69 metro and ''premetro'' stations as of 2011. The Brussels Metro was planned at the beginning of the 1960s to become a fully underground network. The original network, running between De Brouckère and Schuman, was inaugurated on 17 December 1969 as ''premetro'' t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Brussels Metro Line 6
Line 6 is a rapid transit line on the Brussels Metro in Belgium operated by STIB/MIVB. It connects Roi Baudouin/Koning Boudewijn in the north-west of Brussels to Simonis/Elisabeth to the north-west of the city centre, then performing a counterclockwise "loop" around the centre up to Simonis again. During this loop, the line runs under the Small Ring (Brussels' inner ring road), from Porte de Hal/Hallepoort to Yser/IJzer. It has existed in its current form since 4 April 2009, when it replaced former line 1A between Roi Baudouin and Beekkant. It serves 25 metro stations and has 26 stops, metros on that line stopping twice at Simonis. The Simonis-Elisabeth loop is also served by line 2. The line has also a common section with lines 1 and 5 between Gare de l'Ouest/Weststation and Beekkant. A connection with those lines is also possible at Arts-Loi/Kunst-Wet. Starting from Roi Baudouin, the line crosses the municipalities of the City of Brussels, Jette, Koekelberg, Mol ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |