"Portable computer" ??
Elements occur as various isotopes, variations of elements with different atomic weights. American scientist Harold Urey wondered if the smallest atom, hydrogen, had other isotopes, and he calculated how they ought to be constituted if that were the case.
In 1931, he discovered heavy hydrogen and named the new form of hydrogen deuterium. The name is formed from the Greek deuteros, which means "second", to denote the two particles composing the nucleus.
According to the New York Times obituary, Urey once commented that at the time of the discovery, he thought that heavy hydrogen might eventually have practical use in "something like neon signs". Deuterium and tritium are the forms of hydrogen used as fuel in the hydrogen bomb. Deuterium, combined with oxygen as "heavy water", is also essential to operating some nuclear reactors.
Urey was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in Chemistry but refused to travel to Sweden because his wife was pregnant, so he delivered his Nobel Prize lecture the following year.
