Last Exit to Springfield - S4-E17
Corrected entry: When we see a flashback of Mr Burns' ancestor in 1909, he looks at atoms from someone's pocket. Actually, atoms are smaller than microscopic so it would have been impossible for him to see the atoms through a magnifying glass.
Last Exit to Springfield - S4-E17
Corrected entry: The entire staff of the Nuclear Power Plant are meant to be on strike. The number singing in the circle around Lisa outside the plant is nowhere near big enough to run it, and other episodes show that there are many more of them. Where is everyone?
Correction: They were all on strike, they were not all picketing.
Correction: That is what is technically known as the joke... Or, to be more specific, it is obvious that the elder Burns have no idea what he is talking about, or for that matter what nuclear science is about (seeing how he has men trying to split atoms with sledgehammers). Then, when he discovers crumbs or regular pocket lint in the employee's pocket, he believes that this is the miraculous "atoms" he has heard about and assumes that this working-class lowlife has been stealing from him. Ridiculous, as everybody who knows the first things about atomic science knows, but that's what is funny in the scene.
Twotall