Word: morely
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Experts called it the biggest atomic news since the end of World War II. The Atomic Energy Commission revealed last week that it is now considered practical to build a nuclear reactor which will "breed" more atomic fuel than it consumes.
When natural uranium is put in a chain-reacting pile, its U-235 atoms start splitting and yielding energy, "fission products" and free neutrons. Some of the neutrons are needed to split more U-235 atoms and keep the reaction going. Others are absorbed by impurities or escape from the...
The AEC's new breeders, or converters, will lessen the waste, presumably by causing more neutrons to be absorbed byU-238. If the amount of plutonium or other nuclear fuel thus produced is larger than the U-235 consumed, the pile could continue in operation for a very long...
Although the AEC emphasized the peaceful aspects of its new process, the military aspects are important too. Fissionable material, however obtained, can be burned in a peaceful reactor or detonated in a bomb. If the new converter works as well as expected, it will help the U.S. make more bombs...
The full, round figure alerted Washington's amateur physicists. According to fairly dependable estimates, the Hiroshima bomb developed not more than 10% of the fission energy present in its nuclear explosive. Perfect efficiency (probably impossible) would therefore give about ten times as much power, certainly not 1,000 times...