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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.
D. J. Brenner, M. Zaider, J. J. Coyne, H.G. Menzel, R. E. Prael
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 95 | Number 4 | April 1987 | Pages 311-315
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE87-A20442
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Neutron cross sections on carbon at and above 14 MeV are of interest for a variety of applications. It is argued that the ENDF/B-V evaluation of the nonelastic cross sections is in some error; this is due in part to the “subtraction” technique used for evaluating the nonelastic cross section, and to an overreliance on old nuclear emulsion data. In addition, secondary uncharged- (and, for biomedical applications, charged-) particle spectra are important. It is shown that kerma-factor calculations are very sensitive to the secondary charged-particle spectrum. Thus an assessment of the reaction mechanisms, leading to evaluated secondary particle spectra, is also needed.