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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.
C. R. Richey
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 31 | Number 1 | January 1968 | Pages 32-39
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE68-A18005
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A computational analysis was made for the large number of available critical experiments with hydrogenous mixtures. The calculations were made using both multigroup S4 and diffusion theory with 18 energy groups obtained with the GAMTEC-II code. Resonance capture by the isotope 240Pu was treated in the NR and NRIA approximations. Rather good agreement was found between experiment and theory. The results are given as a parametric survey for Pu densities ranging from 0.015 to 1.0 g/cm3. The calculated minimum critical mass of 239Pu is 547 g for water-reflected aqueous Pu(NO3)4 solutions and 531 g for similar mixtures of 239Pu and water.