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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.
N. J. Pattenden
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 17 | Number 3 | November 1963 | Pages 371-380
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE63-A17385
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The ORNL chopper has been used to measure the neutron total cross sections of samples of fission product samarium and iodine in the thermal and resonance energy regions. At 2200 meters/sec, the total cross section of Sm151 was found to be (15000 ± 1800) barns, and the absorption cross section of I129 (28.0 ± 2) barns. The variation of cross section of Sm151 with energy in the thermal region was found to be strongly affected by a bound level, but in the case of I129 the absorption cross section could be described by a “1/V” dependence. In the higher energy region, resonance parameters were obtained for Sm151, I127, and I129 by area analysis of the observed transmission dips. In addition, a shape analysis method was used for the lower energy resonances in Sm151. The following values for the level spacings and strength functions (per spin state), and resonance absorption integrals were obtained: