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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.
S. Pearlstein
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 68 | Number 1 | October 1978 | Pages 10-18
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE78-A27265
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The probability table method (PTM), used in unresolved resonance region calculations, assumes that cross sections are not energy correlated. Strong cross-section energy auto-correlations are noted for some heavy nuclides that could affect the use of the PTM in the unresolved resonance region or its extension to the resolved resonance region. Uranium-238 has strong cross-section auto-correlations and is considered a severe test material for the PTM. Monte Carlo calculations of capture rates in 238U at 500, 1000, and 2000 eV do not show differences between the PTM and exact methods within an ∼1% calculational uncertainty. These results show that strong auto-correlations do not interfere with the use of the PTM in the resolved and unresolved resonance regions.