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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.
William Primak
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 73 | Number 1 | January 1980 | Pages 29-34
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE80-A18705
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Graphite rods and vitreous silica blocks were exposed to the neutrons generated in a spallation source having a large flux component in the 100-MeV region. The electrical conductivity of the former and the dilatation of the latter were measured. The ratio of the damage rate in silica to that in graphite exceeded that reported for fission neutrons, and this is attributed to the scattering cross sections of carbon falling more in the neutron high-energy region than do those of silicon and oxygen. Within our knowledge of the fluxes and their spectra and the yield functions, no great enhancement of the damage rate is found as compared to that which would be calculated from simple isotropic scattering.