How to Use cesium in a Sentence

cesium

noun
  • Time is defined in terms of cesium atoms, so the best clocks in the world are cesium clocks.
    Clara Moskowitz, Scientific American, 28 Jan. 2022
  • The second is affixed to the motion of the atoms of the element cesium.
    Brian Resnick, Vox, 15 Nov. 2018
  • But the radioactive cesium has a half-life of 30 years.
    Elizabeth Preston, Discover Magazine, 26 Mar. 2011
  • Lasers are used to slow and cool the atoms to near absolute zero, and then more lasers are used to elevate the ball of cesium up the chamber.
    Jay Bennett, Popular Mechanics, 24 Mar. 2017
  • That includes elements like radioactive cesium, which have been known to make people sick to the point of death across the globe.
    David Grossman, Popular Mechanics, 15 Apr. 2019
  • In some samples, the cesium from weapons alone was enough to render the wild boars unsafe for human consumption.
    Tim Newcomb, Popular Mechanics, 1 Sep. 2023
  • Prussian blue helped remove cesium from the soil around the Fukushima power plant after the 2011 tsunami.
    Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 20 June 2022
  • The actual creation of such a clock is still a work in progress, and the cesium atom remains today the ultimate time keeper.
    Nathaniel Scharping, Discover Magazine, 18 Jan. 2018
  • The gamma rays emitted by cesium and cobalt can kill germs multiplying in your meat and make your apples last longer.
    Sarah Scoles, Scientific American, 11 Mar. 2022
  • Around the same time, the first accurate atomic clocks were being developed that used cesium.
    Jay Bennett, Popular Mechanics, 24 Mar. 2017
  • Tests routinely come back clear, although last month a solitary black rockfish was found to have cesium levels five times the national standard, the first fish to fail the test in 16 months.
    Washington Post, 6 Mar. 2021
  • In return, Power Metals agreed to send lithium, cesium and tantalum produced at that mine to Sinomine.
    Paul Vieira, WSJ, 2 Nov. 2022
  • Thanks to their new data, however, the researchers may have found a path to safely storing this dangerous cesium.
    Nathaniel Scharping, Discover Magazine, 13 Aug. 2018
  • The capsule contains a radioactive isotope of cesium called cesium-137.
    Will Sullivan, Smithsonian Magazine, 31 Jan. 2023
  • The cesium would have to be separately glassified or disposed of some other way.
    Ralph Vartabedian, latimes.com, 4 June 2019
  • The concentrations of radioactive cesium near Japan, for example, were much higher than the concentrations along the west coast of the US.
    Rachel Becker, The Verge, 22 Mar. 2018
  • The government set a level of 100 becquerels of cesium per kilogram as safe for foodstuffs after Fukushima.
    Gavin Blair, The Christian Science Monitor, 26 Feb. 2021
  • Radioactive iodine and cesium have also turned up in milk and vegetables (such as spinach) around Fukushima.
    Elizabeth Preston, Discover Magazine, 26 Mar. 2011
  • Tokyo has stringent limits on the amount of cesium allowed in food, setting a maximum of just one-twelfth the levels permitted in the United States or the European Union.
    Washington Post, 23 Aug. 2019
  • Their cesium levels will teach us about their migration patterns.
    Daniel Madigan, Discover Magazine, 30 July 2012
  • The best of these are nearly 1000 times more accurate than the best cesium clocks, sensitive enough to pick up the effect of gravity on time due to a change in altitude of centimeters.
    Chad Orzel, Forbes, 7 Dec. 2021
  • After the 2011 tsunami caused a nuclear accident at the Fukushima power plant, Prussian Blue was one of the tools used to clean up radioactive cesium from the soil in the surrounding area.
    Eva Amsen, Forbes, 17 June 2022
  • The particles grab on to ions of cesium, strontium, and other dangerous isotopes in the water, making room for them by spitting out sodium.
    Vince Beiser, WIRED, 27 Apr. 2018
  • In Germany, for example, scientists have long known that the wild boars roaming forests in the country’s south contain high levels of radioactive cesium.
    Will Sullivan, Smithsonian Magazine, 13 Sep. 2023
  • What’s the Context: Once upon a time, seconds were defined in terms of the Earth’s rotation around the sun, but no more: as of 1967, the second is defined in terms of the periods of the microwaves required to bump cesium into a higher state.
    Veronique Greenwood, Discover Magazine, 4 May 2011
  • The highest concentrations of cesium didn’t simply correlate to the areas with the highest rainfall.
    Alex Fox, Smithsonian Magazine, 24 Apr. 2021
  • The Chinese clock, however, is less advanced than its European counterpart, which will use cold cesium atoms.
    Edwin Cartlidge, Science | AAAS, 20 Sep. 2017
  • Cesium isn’t the end of the story, either: there are experimental clocks being developed in labs around the world based on laser light, with a much higher frequency than the microwaves used in cesium clocks.
    Chad Orzel, Forbes, 7 Dec. 2021
  • Radiogardase, the brand name, was approved by the FDA in 2003 to help treat cesium or thallium exposure.
    Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY, 8 Dec. 2022
  • This enables optical atomic clocks to measure time far more precisely than cesium clocks.
    New York Times, 25 Apr. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'cesium.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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