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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.
R. J. Gelinas, R. K. Osborn
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 24 | Number 2 | February 1966 | Pages 184-192
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE66-A18303
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A set of moment equations is given for a reactor system in which neutron fluctuations are observed by detecting high-energy prompt photons that arise from neutron interactions. Attention is restricted to a one-speed “point-reactor” model in which delayed neutrons and photons are ignored. Expressions for the ratio of the variance to mean of the particles arising from the detection of photons are computed, as well as for the power spectral density of the detection rates. Comparison of these results with the corresponding expressions from conventional neutron-detecting noise analysis shows a striking similarity, and it is suggested that noise analysis by photon detection possesses certain other characteristics that endorse its feasibility in principle.