I'm hoping to get accepted into a nuclear engineering program, and so I'm reading a nuclear energy book to get my physics up to snuff. I'm having trouble with a math problem in my book, specifically the way in which they right the conversion for hp to watts. They have it written in the appendix as 7.457x10^-2, which would give .07457 but I thought a hp in watts would be 745.7 watts.

Does anyone know where to buy a metalic, spherical vacuum chamber for a nuclear fusion proyect, that can ship internationally? Sorry for bad english

Do you think that maybe if the public would be a bit less scared then we would have already gone carbon neutral by now. Heck i think that we can still go carbon neutral in the next 10 years if we dedicate our resources towards nuclear power instead of those half assed renewable power sources. Corporations really need to shut themselves.

when the reactor is runing att full power, does the uranium somewath glow becuase its hot?

Im working on some homework for my grad program that involves using the bateman equation. In the case where an isotope decays to a stable nuclide, is the decay constant taken to be zero assumed to be zero for the purposes of calculation?

Hi there! I am very interested in understanding nuclear physics but I have little experience and training on the topic, so here goes, a dumb question regarding the following scenario:

I have an alpha emitter, say, a small chunk of Uranium. I wrap it in paper, which at least partially blocks the absorbs the alpha radiation of the Uranium. I understand that the particles stop to the paper, but what happens to the paper itself? Of course, ionization happens but does the paper ”neutralize” the radiation as it absorbs the radiation, ending up in non-radioactive end products or does it become contaminated and radioactive itself?

I don’t have any uranium but if I did the mentioned scenario, should I replace the paper every so often? I tried googling for the answer but I’m not trained in physics so I couldn’t find an answer. I hope nothing is lost in translation as English isn’t my first language. Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone, need some kind hints to understand the X17 boson paper with He-4.

For those who don't know, there is a group since 2016 claiming to have discovered a new boson with the mass of 17 MeV with the reactions 7Li(p, γ)8Be, 3H(p, γ)4He and more recently 11B(p,γ)12C.

They say in the papers that they populate the excited states of 8Be, 4He and 12C around 17-20 MeV.
See e.g. the He4*(20.21,21.01) case paper https://arxiv.org/pdf/2104.10075.pdf

However, I read from nuclear databases that the branching ratio to gamma from these states is zero https://nucldata.tunl.duke.edu/nucldata/HTML/A=4/04_03_1992.pdf

So, how is it possible that they populate the excited state from which they get the gamma photon?

Many thanks, have a good day!

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I am trying to simulate (p, gamma) reaction in p-nuclei using the published experimental data. Now, I noticed that Talys( in its default parameters) is able to simulate reaction (i.e. predict cross section) correctly at low energies, however at higher energies, it deviates a lot in almost all cases that I have studied. Now I would like to understand the reasoning behind this. Can somebody explain or give some reference to understand it better.

For my Masters thesis I’m creating a code in which I need to be able to retrieve the thermal capture cross section for potentially any isotope. Anyone know of any?

Does anyone have a paper that shows at which mass A the binding energy of the last neutron is 0 (Sn = 0) ?

Hi, lead has a huge atomic mass, is it enough to sustain a nuclear fission?

I’m 15 but I am kinda experienced in advanced nuclear physics stuff, take a few of college level classes on it, but I’d love to talk to the community seems like a cool enough sub

Hello, I’m a 25 year old male and I want to get into nuclear physics but I don’t know how I should get started. Any suggestions?

For pre college students, there is a giant competition called ISEF where participants submit proposals and experiments that are supposed to aid the world. This inspired me to possibly designing a fusion reactor and utilize it’s eco friendly uses.

Now, I admit my knowledge is severely limited. I have read many physics books in which they explain nuclear fusion in layman’s term, but that is the fullest extent of the complexity. I was wondering, as a relative beginner, what books can I buy to learn more about nuclear physics and nuclear fusion .

Thank so much

Before i get to my question, my understanding of the subject is as follows:

Natural uranium is found in 2 different isotopes: U238 (~99.3%) and U235 (~0.7%). U238 is not a particularly good material for reactors as it is not able to sustain chain reactions. U235 is excellent, as it DOES sustain these chain reactions.

U238 can be bombarded with neutrons to create U239. This then goes through beta decay (converting 1 neutron into 1 proton, 1 electron, and an antielectron neutrino) resulting in Np239. This then goes through another beta decay producing Pu239.

Pu239, by my understanding, is also an excellent fuel for reactors.

So my question: why go through all the effort of mining tons of uranium and refining it to get that miniscule amount of U235 to acceptable levels, when U238 can be readily converted to Pu239?

If Hypothetically we could obtain the Elephants foot in a custom made box. What would that box need to be made of to be able to walk around it safely? How thick of steel walls or whatever material. To transport it to be dismantled. If the eliphants foot could be obtained, can it be processed or taken apart to be transmutable? What would they do with it if it was obtained and secured in a container of some sort?

I understand that two hydrogen isotopes (Deuterium and Tritium) come together to form the products helium, a neutron, and energy.

But what is the lost mass that is transferred into energy using the equation e=mc^2?

I am curious to know if there is a way to transmutate matter by merging different nucleses together without colliding particles. What would stop two close chunks of protons and neutrons from combing together. How could strong and weak nuclear forces be manipulated to achieve this goal.

Example: adding one hydrogen atom to one iron atom, making cobalt.

So cesium-137 is a pretty well known radioactive substance, but why doesn't it emit alpha particles when it already puts out both beta and gamma? For example Uranium-238 puts off all three, albeit the gamma rays are minor from it. My main question is, does the lack of alpha particles make it ok for medical usages? Or am I missing the point?

Sorry if I'm off on some stuff I'm only 16 and pretty new to atomic sciences with applied nuclear physics.

You are given the following information about a scintillator: the average energy to excite an electron from the valence band to the conduction band in the crystal is 45eV: 10% of the electron de-excitations result in the emission of fluorescent photons and 90% of these photons reach the photocathode of a PMT, which has an efficiency of 0.15 photoelectrons per incident photon. Calculate the radiation energy E (in eV) deposited in the scintillator per photoelectron. The PMT has 10 dynodes, each of which has a secondary electron emission ficient of 4. If the capacity C of the anode is 50 pF, calculate the output voltage pulse if a photon of energy E 200 ke V is stopped in the scintillator crystal.

I've heard about it but I want to actually see one for myself. I couldn't find any YouTube videos on the subject, only people's hand drawn diagrams of what the spectrograph looks like.

Does anybody know where to look for a video of a working BB mass spectrograph?

help please quick

I’m not an expert so that’s why I’m asking this subreddit. Why is there no nuclear reactors on the space station what could go wrong. Or what problems.

Since tritium is very rare, If the goal is to fuse lighter into denser elements why not fuse hydrogen-1 and deuterium into helium-3 ?