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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.
Moses A. Greenfield, Roscoe L. Koontz, Alan A. Jarrett
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 4 | Number 4 | October 1958 | Pages 563-569
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE58-A28832
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The method for computing absolute thermal neutron flux from measurements made with activated indium foils is described. By combining data from the counting rate of indium foils in 2π proportional counters with appropriate corrections for foil weights and neutron effects, the thermal flux is expressed in terms of σO, the thermal absorption cross section of In115. This procedure may be used by laboratories which do not have access to a standard graphite pile or to a standard neutron source. This method has an estimated error of less than 5% which is a function of the accuracy with which it is possible to determine the various correction factors for beta counting. A possible fixed error in the value of σO can easily be corrected for and incorporated into the methods used.