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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.
J. D. Spencer, T. G. Williamson
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 27 | Number 3 | March 1967 | Pages 568-572
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE86-A17623
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The age of fission neutrons was measured to the indium resonance energy for light water and three metal-to-water volume ratios (1/4, 1/2, 2/3) in aluminum- water mixtures. A large plane highly enriched 235U fission plate provided the source of neutrons. Aluminum plates (0.127 × 122 × 122 cm) oriented parallel to the source plane were used for the metal. Indium foil activities were taken in planes parallel to the source and integrated over these planes to obtain the equivalent activities that would result from an infinite source. From these data, the ages for the four cases were: M/W = 0, (26.24 ± 0.33 cm2); M/W = 1/4, (32.28 ± 0.50 cm2); M/W = 1/2, (39.96 ± 0.50 cm2); M/W = 2/3, (44.88 ± 0.59 cm2). To investigate heterogeneous effects, the plates were lumped to simulate 0.635-cm-thick plates and the measurements repeated for the 2/3 metal-to-water ratio. The measured age was 44.50 ± 0.49 cm2, indicating no lumping effect in this measurement. The data for the pure water measurement were also analyzed by applying geometric corrections for the finite size of the source plate. This resulted in a measured age of 27.82 ± 0.66 cm2, which agrees with previous measurements utilizing this method of data analysis.