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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.
Robert C. Axtmann, John, Bridgwater
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 15 | Number 1 | January 1963 | Pages 81-89
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE63-A26266
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Fast neutrons deposit energy in chemical systems by means of elastic scattering, inelastic scattering, and various charged particle reactions. For the particular case of 14.6 Mev neutrons and 1:1 solutions of liquid N2 and O2, the proportions by which the three classes of reactions contribute are, respectively, about 1:1:4. The initial linear energy transfer (ILET) in the same system is of the order of 20 ev/Å. Dosimetry in fast neutron radiation chemistry experiments may combine a quantitative consideration of each nuclear reaction with a measurement of the neutron flux. This method of dosimetry has been applied to experiments on the production of NO2 in 1:1 liquid N2 and O2 with the result that GNO2, the number of NO2 molecules formed per 100 ev deposited in the sample, was found equal to 0.5 ±0.1. This result is surprisingly close to that observed for irradiations by Co50 gamma rays and by electrons whose ILET is three orders of magnitude less than that for 14.6 Mev neutrons.
