The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 35

THE COl LOUISVILLE. KY TUESDAY MORMNG, LEHRUAHY 13, 18 ASK ANDY Want to auk a question and maybe irn an enryclopedia or allot? Mail it to ASK ADY, The Courier-Journal, Louittille, Ky. 40202. Cite your name, age, and addreii. Joe reason's Kentucky The Dead Man 's Hand.

Discarded by Wild Bill If you saw this outburst of raw drama, you may have wondered about all that dead man's hand jazz, what it is and As a rule, they are present in definite ratios. The standard atomic weight of the elements take these ratios and weight variations into account. The atomic weight of uranium is 238.03 with a fraction allowing for a ratio of other isotopes. The mass number of any single isotope atom is a whole number. This is because its weight variation depends upon one or more whole neutrons.

Every neutron in every atom is alike and has the same weight. It weighs about as much as a positively charged proton, or 1,838 times as much as a negatively charged electron. But unlike these two oppositely charged particles, the neutron is neutraL It adds nothing to the electrical charge of an atom. But an extra neutron adds one unit of weight and one less neutron reduces the atom by exactly the same mass unit. Andy sends a 20-volume encyclopedia to Jeff Scott, 13, of Huntsvllle, for his question.

Copyright, 1MI bon has been awarded the mass number of 12 and the scale of atomic mass numbers is based upon this. Compared with carbon, the atomic weight of chlorine is 34.453. Only a few elements have whole numbers for atomic weights. This fractional problem springs from neutron particles. We know that an atomic element has a constant number of protons.

They give its atomic number in whole numbers. But not every atom in the same element has the same number of neutrons. Every uranium atom has 92 protons and this element's atomic number is 92. Uranium 235 and uranium 238 both have 92 protons. U-235 has 143 neutrons and U-238 has three extra.

The extra weight shows up in the mass number of U-238. You might class U-238 as an isotope and expect U-235 to be rated as a non-isotope atom of uranium. But this is not so. Both atoms are isotopes of uranium. In most uranium samples, the heavier U-238 atoms are more plentiful.

In nature, lighter or heavier isotopes are present in samples of most elements. Why Is an isotope of the same element heavier? An isotope is an atom and every atom belongs to one and only one of the known chemical elements. As an atom, it is the smallest complete unit of an atomic element. The feature that makes an isotope different from other atoms of the same element is mass, or weight. And the differences in the weight of isotopes occur in precise units.

A person can add Vz or Vk pounds or ounce units to his weight. An isotope cannot. It varies from its atomic brethren by one or more complete mass units. Since the mass of an atomic particle does not vary, this should give us a hint about the overweight or underweight isotopes. The mass of an atom is the total of its major nuclear particles.

The masses of its orbiting electrons and of some assorted particles within its nucleus are so infinitesimal that our present system of measurements disregards them. The mass number of an atom comes down to the sum of its protons and neutrons. Car- THE OTHER night I was watching a draw poker game being played out in highly dramatic fashion on a TV Western show. The forehead of the good guy (the one who didn't have a mustache) was beaded with perspiration as he desperately tried to win enough to pay off the mortgage on his place, or "spread," as they say in the cactus-country epics. The cards were dealt, he squinted at them, pushed all his chips to the center It Might Help WHO SAYS children don't learn early.

Some years back Freeman Annis of Logansport was trying without any success to corner a snorting, wild-kicking mule. An interested spectator was his son, Truman, 5. "Dad," the kid suggested after a few minutes, "I think you'll have to cuss him a little!" Basketball Ad-Libs I THOUGHT the supply of ad-lib gems had been used up by the talkers on the TV pro football games, but I was wrong. Everett Davis of Harlan picked this one up during the Boston-New York pro basketball game on a recent Sunday. "I spoke to Elgin Baylor last night and Elgin told me that he is at the peak of his physical condition.

Of course, he is out right now with an ankle injury." In other words, he's at a low peak. Worry Material IN CASE YOU run out of things to worry about, try this one on for size. According to the National Society for Prevention of Blindness, Americans have become such avid do-it-yourselfers, and servants properly trained in such refined duties are so hard to come by, that the danger of getting eyes hurt by the popping of corks from champagne bottles has increased alarmingly. REX MORGAN, M.D. how it originated.

Actually, the so-called dead man's hand in poker has a strong Kentucky flavor, and goes back to the demise of Butler (Wild Bill) Hickok, the frontier peace marshal who was shot and killed while playing poker at Deadwood, in 1876. The cards he held when a bullet was fired into the back of his head became known in legend as the dead man's hand. The man who fired the bullet was "Broke Nose" Jack McCall, a Louisvillian who heeded the urging of Horace Greeley and the local police and went West in the early 1870s. He landed in Deadwood where he often whiled away the hours playing poker with Hickok and others. The day before the murder Hickok had cleaned him.

The next afternoon, McCall caught Hickok pondering over an assortment of cards, slipped up behind him in Lewis and Mann's Saloon and let him have it. As Wild Bill's body was being removed from the premises, the five cards he had been holding dropped from his hand and settled, face up, on the floor. And what were the five cards that have come to bear the reputation as the dead man's hand? The two black aces, the two red eights and the jack of diamonds. TT5 i jp rr Wild Bill Hickok Lett something to remember him by of the table and slowly spread his hands before him. The other players glanced at the five cards, turned ghost-pale to a man and gasped in unison: "The dead man's hand!" BLONDIE MM SMITH FAMILY V4E.

TUOOGUT eUT ALL TVAE UIM7E CAN I BORROW JlLUiliiy five -y 7 N0, MY JET VEEP TVAAsT Q.V4CRY 7 HEY O4GW00D, DO VOU HAVE ANY HE NOES- A LOT FASTER -f -t THAN HE 2-3 hrn(tn lar SvnAttt, Jut GIL THORP STEVE CANYON I II 11 VI r7 Oh Londy Now 1 1 WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT SHE PEOPPED THAT I-I GUESS IT KILLED IN I in i He me up you re too are 5 THE POOR ANIMAL- THE FALL HAVE WHEN 5H SAW T1E-POWN UNfc 10 Half past; com BEi THAT H2 AIRCRAFT MB SUCH PRESENCE ONTO THE Ak-E Bvv you okay ilnn HAD CAUSED MY OF MIND' BEEN- AVOIPEPM -I warned emu -he'd get caught RT to you right away.N HORSE FROZEN QUARRY I 5 1 I -iiihj I 7 AAA. BFFTLE BAILEY B.C tmeee ace some 7 YOU SUEE A LOT TQw 1M TME yfJL ABOUT WHOM VO YOU MEAN? cgulo Be a meter' I COINCIDENCE IF "IPAT AMT PFPOff WHAT rrT GUYS WMO JU5T WON'T CO-OPERATE OK TMEY IvVC SNDWFLAXES EXAMiNEP OvfeR HUNPKEP THOOSANO ePClMEMS WITHOUT A PUPLiaTiOW- APE ALINE ALWAYS TAkTE THE FACV WAV nn TbA "IP ABNER NANCY ROAST RUMP OF LE GRAMD CHARLES HOPES YOU TOMORROW WE DIKIEIM THAT'S V. FOR THE I MIXED A LITTLE I HOPE. FLATULENT GLUE WITH THE .6 t-t. fr YOU'RE NOT IN FOR ANY 1 AFTER YOU EAT LE GRANDEST HEY, NANCY WHAT'S GOINC? FRENCH SOAP BUBBLES VMAO RUMP OF ON HERE msmik Y.vv -mute- THE CllOSSWORD PUZZLE THE FAMILY CIRCUS 52 Pelican's pride 54 Sabbath: Abbr.

55 Partner of dried 49 Novelist exiled by Napoleon 51 West Indian shrub Nat. sp. 41 Passover feast 42 Schoolmaster's stick wooer goes a-wooing 2 words 45 Distinction 46 Atelier piece 47 O.K.I 57 Venerable 58 U.S. Govt, agency: Initials 59 City on the Rhone delta 60 Noted diva 61 Discussion Down 1 Ship of the Yellow Sea 2 Anne Nichols' hero 3 Damaging Influence 4 Slip 5 Grouse: 2 words 42 Large volume 43 Give an account 44 Cajole 47 Modern warning device 48 Hidden treasures 49 British general at Bunker Hill 50 Flounder 53 Succeed 54 Source of a sweet commodity 56 December songs words 6 "No man is to his 2 words 7 Lion's pride 8 Pints: Abbr. 9 Dry red wine 10 Poetic postscript 1 1 Intensity 12 Official in a French city 13 Remains 18 People of Muscat 22 Embryo plant 24 Sea wall 25 Hindu warrior 26 Italian: Abbr.

27 Footgear 28 Snapper or porgy 30 Spirit of Arabian saga 31 rock: 4 words 32 Level 33 Clavicle 36 Oklahoma: Abbr. 38 Woman of great charms 39 Pipe joints 40 River in Burma: Acrett 1 Oriental gem 5 Hominy 9 Fare for a beach cookout 14 Over: Ger. 15 At the drop of 1 2 words 16 Afghan city 17 Gaseous compounds 19 Subcontinent 20 Prefix with plunk or flop 21 Pure and simple 22 Appetizing 23 Gem State 25 Caballeros 26 "Love me and the world "1 2 words 28 Saintly quality 29 Popular musical! 4 words 31 Air Force Base: Abbr. 34 First-class 35 Term in physics 36 Norse city 37 Assign by contract 38 Mongol conqueror: 2 Answer to Yesterday's Punle Itt Bit ll 25.00 REWARD! ll $11 tA I Y0U if you can siv 17 18 till19 uvsrV 1 1 ul nam 0 1 (JS2( iWjL 1 1 who it going to hav a 20 S21 lH 22 I f' "irA I I garage built and your in. vtfr W' vjV 1 1 formation results in a sale 23 2 25- National Builders.

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