Portal:Nuclear technology
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Introduction
- Nuclear technology is technology that involves the nuclear reactions of atomic nuclei. Among the notable nuclear technologies are nuclear reactors, nuclear medicine and nuclear weapons. It is also used, among other things, in smoke detectors and gun sights. (Full article...)
- Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced by nuclear fission of uranium and plutonium in nuclear power plants. Nuclear decay processes are used in niche applications such as radioisotope thermoelectric generators in some space probes such as Voyager 2. Generating electricity from fusion power remains the focus of international research. (Full article...)
- A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. (Full article...)
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The British nuclear weapons project, High Explosive Research, successfully tested a nuclear weapon in Operation Hurricane in October 1952, but production was slow and Britain had only ten atomic bombs on hand in 1955 and fourteen in 1956. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill, approached the President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, with a request that the US supply nuclear weapons for the strategic bombers of the V bomber fleet until sufficient British weapons became available. This became known as Project E. Under an agreement reached in 1957, US personnel had custody of the weapons, and performed all tasks related to their storage, maintenance and readiness. The bombs were held in secure storage areas (SSAs) on the same bases as the bombers.
The first bombers equipped with Project E weapons were English Electric Canberras based in Germany and the UK that were assigned to NATO. These were replaced by Vickers Valiants in 1960 and 1961 as the long-range Avro Vulcan and Handley Page Victor assumed the strategic nuclear weapon delivery role. Project E weapons equipped V-bombers at three bases in the UK from 1958. Due to operational restrictions imposed by Project E, and the consequential loss of independence of half of the British nuclear deterrent, they were phased out in 1962 when sufficient British megaton weapons became available, but remained in use with the Valiants in the UK and RAF Germany until 1965.
Project E nuclear warheads were used on the sixty Thor Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles operated by the RAF from 1959 to 1963 under Project Emily. The British Army acquired Project E warheads for its Corporal missiles in 1958. The US subsequently offered the Honest John missile as a replacement. They remained in service until 1977 when Honest John was superseded by the Lance missile. Eight-inch and 155 mm nuclear artillery rounds were also acquired under Project E. The last Project E weapons were withdrawn from service in 1992. (Full article...)
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Did you know?
- ... that the British Tychon missile was developed from a Barnes Wallis concept to keep strike aircraft safe while dropping nuclear bombs?
- ... that campaigning by climate activist Kimiko Hirata halted plans to build 17 new coal-fired power plants following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan?
- ... that in 1958 the Scyla theta pinch device was the first to demonstrate controlled nuclear fusion in the laboratory?
- ... that Helen Steven shared the Gandhi International Peace Award for her opposition to the nuclear submarine base in Scotland?
- ... that plutonium produced in the nuclear reactors at the Hanford Engineer Works was used in the Fat Man bomb used in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in August 1945?
- ... that coral cores from Flinders Reef capture environmental changes caused by the use of nuclear weapons?
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Selected biography -
A graduate of the University of Göttingen, Goeppert Mayer wrote her doctoral thesis on the theory of possible two-photon absorption by atoms. At the time, the chances of experimentally verifying her thesis seemed remote, but the development of the laser in the 1960s later permitted this. Today, the unit for the two-photon absorption cross section is named the Goeppert Mayer (GM) unit.
Maria Goeppert married chemist Joseph Edward Mayer and moved to the United States, where he was an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University. Strict rules against nepotism prevented Johns Hopkins University from taking her on as a faculty member, but she was given a job as an assistant and published a landmark paper on double beta decay in 1935. In 1937, she moved to Columbia University, where she took an unpaid position. During World War II, she worked for the Manhattan Project at Columbia on isotope separation, and with Edward Teller at the Los Alamos Laboratory on the development of thermonuclear weapons.
After the war, Goeppert Mayer became a voluntary associate professor of physics at the University of Chicago (where her husband and Teller worked) and a senior physicist at the university-run Argonne National Laboratory. She developed a mathematical model for the structure of nuclear shells, for which she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963, which she shared with J. Hans D. Jensen and Eugene Wigner. In 1960, she was appointed full professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego. (Full article...)
Nuclear technology news
- 21 June 2024 – France–Niger relations
- Niger's military junta revokes the operating license of French nuclear fuel producer Orano at the Imouraren uranium mine amid tensions between the two countries. (BBC News)
- 13 June 2024 –
- A Russian warship and a nuclear-powered submarine conduct military drills in the Caribbean sea simulating a missile strike on enemy ships after passing near the coast of Florida in order to reach Havana, Cuba. (AP)
- 11 June 2024 – Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Russia and Belarus begin the second stage of their tactical nuclear weapons drills. (The Independent)
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