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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.
Yu. V. Petrov, A. I. Shlyakhter
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 77 | Number 2 | February 1981 | Pages 157-167
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE81-A21350
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An estimate of the cross sections of nuclear reactions with thermal neutrons in terms of the average parameters of the target nucleus (the strength function, the average level spacing, and the average reaction width) is obtained. The probability distributions for the ratios of actual thermal neutron cross sections to their estimated values are introduced. These functions can be calculated from the statistical model. They are calculated for neutron radiative capture and for inelastic neutron acceleration by the isomeric nuclei [as well as the (n, α) reaction, etc.]. Using these results, one can predict the probability of finding the actual thermal neutron cross section in a given interval.