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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.
Richard L. Caldwell, William R. Mills, Jr., John B. Hickman, Jr.
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 8 | Number 3 | September 1960 | Pages 173-182
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE60-A25797
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Gamma rays in the energy range 2 to 11 Mev produced by inelastic scattering of 14-Mev neutrons by nine elements were measured at a mean angle of 90 deg. Excluding carbon and oxygen, the maximum energy gamma rays varied from about 8 Mev for phosphorus to about 10.5 Mev for magnesium and 11 Mev for silicon. Resolved gamma rays were observed from carbon (4.43 Mev), oxygen (6.1 and 7 Mev), silicon (1.78 Mev), aluminum (2.2 Mev), phosphorus (2.2 Mev), sulfur (2.2 Mev), and calcium (3.7 Mev). In the energy range 4–6 Mev there are indications of individual gamma rays in silicon; no resolved gamma-ray peaks above 2 Mev were observed for iron and magnesium. Except for carbon and oxygen, the intensity of gamma rays decreases with increase in energy and varies from about 3 to 9 times higher at 2–3 Mev than at 5–6 Mev. Gamma-ray production cross sections are given for each element, relative to the known cross section for carbon. The ratio of the integrated cross section for gamma-ray production above 2 Mev to the nonelastic neutron cross section varies from 0.59 for sulfur to 0.99 for iron.