The First Nuclear Era: The Life and Times of a Technological FixerThe First Nuclear Era is Alvin Weinberg's autobiography, the memoirs of a most influential American nuclear engineer/physicist. These reminiscences date from the dawning of the nuclear age in the early 1940s to the present. It is the story of one notable scientist's life and times and a look back at one of humankind's most ambitious endeavors: the attempt to harness and safely distribute nuclear power. Weinberg has witnessed and played a major part in many of the defining scientific moments of his era. Here he describes his academic career at the University of Chicago, under the tutelage of Nicolas Rashevsky and Carl Eckart. He recalls his wartime days at the Manhattan Project's Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory where he helped Nobelist Eugene Wigner design the Hanford plutonium producing reactors. He then focuses on what would become the abiding legacy of his professional life: his development of and involvement with nuclear reactors. In discussing both great commercial successes (such as the Light-Water Reactor) and unsuccessful experiments, Weinberg offers an objective critique of the technical and political shortcomings that have haunted the nuclear age. He also demonstrates how the lessons learned from unsuccessful reactors paved the way for later triumphs. |
Contents
Robert Hutchins University of Chicago Nicolas Rashevsky and Carl Eckart | 1 |
The Metallurgical Laboratory and Eugene Wigners Hanford | 11 |
Clinton Laboratories Where Man First Created Huge Quantities of Radioactivity | 47 |
ORNLs Scientific Centerpiece | 76 |
Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion | 95 |
FluidFuel Power Breeders | 109 |
Economic Nuclear Power is Here? | 132 |
Desalting the Sea and Other Technological Fixes | 142 |
International Euphoria | 153 |
Common terms and phrases
AEC's aircraft nuclear propulsion aircraft reactor experiment analysis aqueous homogeneous aqueous homogeneous reactor Argonne Arthur Compton Atomic Energy Commission became beryllium Bill bomb build built carbon dioxide chain reaction cheap chemical Chicago Clinton Committee coolant cooled core cost desalting DuPont Eckart economic Energy Research engineering ergy estimate Eugene Wigner eventually Fermi fissile fission fuel elements gas-cooled graphite Hanford heat heavy water high-flux pile Hiroshima homogeneous reactor idea isotope kilowatts later lattice light-water reactors materials-testing reactor megawatts moderated molten molten-salt neutrons never nuclear energy nuclear power nuclear reactors nuclear-powered Oak Ridge operated ORNL ORNL's Pakistan physicist plutonium power plant president pressure pressurized-water reactor produced proposed PSAC radiation radioactivity reac reactor development reactor experiment realized research reactors Rickover Rickover's rods safety scientific scientists second nuclear shield solar Soviet submarine Szilard tank technical temperature thermal breeder thorium tion uranium wastes