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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.
C. Smidts
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 112 | Number 2 | October 1992 | Pages 114-126
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE92-A28408
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An example is given to illustrate the probabilistic reactor dynamics theory developed earlier. A reservoir with two output valves is considered in which the valves are subject to random failures. The operator must maintain the tank pressure within an upper and a lower bound whatever the initial system state may be. A complete description is given of the physical system, of the instrumentation, and of the human model that was selected to describe the operator’s behavior. The results are expressed in terms of state occupation probabilities and mean exit times. A Monte Carlo algorithm is briefly described.