ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Latest Magazine Issues
Mar 2026
Jan 2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
April 2026
Nuclear Technology
February 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
L. Green
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 66 | Number 1 | April 1978 | Pages 127-134
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE78-A15197
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The shape of the thorium absorption cross section near thermal energies was investigated. This shape is dominated by one or more negative energy resonances whose parameters are not directly known but must be inferred from higher energy data. Since the integral quantity most conveniently describing the thermal cross-section shape is the Westcott g-factor, effort was directed toward establishing this quantity to high precision. Three nearly independent g-factor estimates were obtained from measurements on a variety of foils in three different neutron spectra provided by polyethylene-moderated neutrons from a 252Cf source and from irradiations in the National Bureau of Standards “Standard Thermal Neutron Density.” The weighted average of the three measurements was 0.990 ± 0.009. This is in good agreement with two recent evaluations and supports the adequacy of the current cross-section descriptions.