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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.
E. F. Bennett
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 27 | Number 1 | January 1967 | Pages 16-27
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE67-A18038
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Small proportional counters containing hydrogen and without collimation have measured reactor neutron spectra with resolution adequate for comparison with existing energy-group methods of calculation over the energy range from 1 keV to 1 MeV. The counters are efficient and operate satisfactorily at low (105/cm2 sec) flux levels. Experimental methods currently in use for in-core measurements using proportional counters vary; the one described here makes use of an electronic pulse-shape discrimination to eliminate the background of gamma radiation. The nature of the numerical procedure required to extract neutron spectra from measured energy distributions of recoil protons bears upon the resolution and statistical precision of the result. Examples of measured neutron spectra are given where they illustrate the various points of experimental technique.