DescriptionU of Pennsylvania accelerator beam tube 1940.jpg
English: Inside the beamtube of a electrostatic particle accelerator at the University of Pennsylvania in 1940. During operation, subatomic particles travel through the evacuated pipe at center, accelerated by a million volt electrostatic potential. The metal rings along the tube are called grading rings and serve to even out the potential along the tube, to prevent arcing.
This 1940 issue of Popular Science magazine would have the copyright renewed in 1968. Online page scans of the Catalog of Copyright Entries, published by the US Copyright Office can be found here. Search of the Renewals for Periodicals for 1967, 1968, and 1969 show no renewal entries for Popular Science. Therefore the copyright was not renewed and it is in the public domain.
Note that it may still be copyrighted in jurisdictions that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works (depending on the date of the author's death), such as Canada (70 years p.m.a.), Mainland China (50 years p.m.a., not Hong Kong or Macao), Germany (70 years p.m.a.), Mexico (100 years p.m.a.), Switzerland (70 years p.m.a.), and other countries with individual treaties.