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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. E. Howe, J. C. Browne, R. J. Dougan, R. J. Dupzyk, J. H. Landrum
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 77 | Number 4 | April 1981 | Pages 454-462
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE81-A18958
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The fission neutron multiplicity, , of 242mAm(n,f) was measured relative to that of 235U(n,f) using the neutron time-of-flight facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 100-MeV electron Linac. Incident neutron energies ranged from 0.037 to 30 MeV. Fission fragments were detected using two hemispherical ionization chambers each containing ∼400 µg of 99.2% pure 242mAm. A separate fission chamber with 8.3 mg of 235U was situated between the two 242Am chambers and provided a normalization at every data point. Fission neutrons were detected in a liquid benzene scintillator using pulse-shape discrimination to separate gamma rays from neutrons. A comparison of the measured energy dependence of is made with semi-empirical models of neutron emission from the actinides.