ribute something to
the effect.

At that point, Mike remembered, the electron itself would be spinning,
a lighter-weight gyroscope, much as Earth has a lighter weight than
the Sun. The electron, too, had a magnetic field; more powerful than
the proton's field because of its higher rate of spin, despite its
lighter mass. The electron could also be lined up.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Mike remembered having read of
another effect. The electron's resonance. Electron para-magnetic
resonance.

It, too, could be controlled by radio frequencies in a magnetic
field--but the frequencies were different, far up in the microwave
region; about three centimeters as Mike recalled--and he went back to
his supply cabinet to get another piece of equipment, a spare klystron
that actually belonged to the radar department but that was "stored"
in his shop.

At these frequencies, the three centimeter band of the electromagnetic
spectrum, energy does not flow on wires as it does in the lower
frequency regions. Here plumbing is required. But Mike, amongst other
things, was an expert RF plumber.

Even experts take time to set up klystrons, and it was three hours
later before Mike was ready with the additional piece of haywire
equipment which carefully piped RF energy into the plastic block.

This refinement by itself had been done before; but some of the others
that Mike applied during his investigation probably hadn't--at least
not to any such tortured piece of plastic as now existed between the
pole faces of the device.

To have produced the complete alignment of both the protons and the
electrons within a mass might have been attempted before. To have applied
an electrostatic field in addition to this had perhaps been attempted
before. To have done all three, at the same time to the same piece of
plastic, and then to have added the additional tortures that Mike thought
up as he went along, was perhaps a chance combination, repeatable once in
a million tries, one of those experimental accidents that sometimes
provide more insight into the nature of matter than all of the careful
research devised by multi-million-dollar-powered teams of classical
researchers.

When the contraption was in full operation, he simply sat on his heels
and watched, studying out in his mind the circuits and their effects.

The interruption of the magnetic resonance by the electrostatic
field--by the DC--with the RF plumbing--twisted by--each time