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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. Swindle, R. Wright, K. Takahashi, W. H. Rivera, J. L. Meason
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 52 | Number 4 | December 1973 | Pages 466-473
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE73-A23314
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The mass-yield distribution of fission products following photofission of 238U using bremsstrahlung energies of 22, 24, and 26 MeV were measured by radio-chemically isolating the fission products belonging to 24 mass chains. The absolute activities of these nuclides were determined by β‾ and γ counting techniques, and the cumulative fission yields were calculated relative to 140Ba. The peak-to-valley ratio was found to be effectively constant; thus, the average photon-energy-inducing fission is essentially equal for all three energies studied in this work. The fission yields in the mass region from 130 to 140 were examined for evidence of fine structure around A = 132 or A = 133. Although there were some deviations in this region from a “smooth curve,” it did not yield conclusive evidence for fine structure. Finally, to set the slope of the heavy wing of the mass yield curves, cumulative fission yields of mass chains in the rare-earth region (in addition to others) were measured.