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Egon Bretscher
Egon Bretscher CBE (1901–1973) was a Swiss-born British chemist and nuclear physicist and Head of the Nuclear Physics Division from 1948 to 1966 at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, also known as Harwell Laboratory, in Harwell, United Kingdom. He was one of the pioneers in nuclear fission research and one of the first to foresee that plutonium could be used as an energy source. His work on nuclear physics led to his involvement in the British atomic bomb research project Tube Alloys and his membership of the British Mission to the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, where he worked in Enrico Fermi's Advanced Development Division in the F-3 Super Experimentation group. His contributions up to 1945 are discussed by Margaret Gowing in her "''Britain and Atomic Energy'', 1935-1945." Early life Born near Zurich, Switzerland and educated at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) there, Bretscher gained a PhD degree in organic chemistry at Edinburgh in 1926. He return ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atomic Energy Research Establishment
The Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE) was the main Headquarters, centre for nuclear power, atomic energy research and development in the United Kingdom from 1946 to the 1990s. It was created, owned and funded by the British Government. A number of early research reactors were built here starting with GLEEP in 1947 to provide the underlying science and technology behind the design and building of Britain's nuclear reactors such as the Windscale Piles and Calder Hall nuclear power station. To support this an extensive array of research and design laboratories were built to enable research into all aspects of nuclear reactor and fuel design, and the development of pilot plants for fuel reprocessing. The site became a major employer in the Oxford area. In the 1990s demand for government-led research had significantly decreased and the site was subsequently gradually diversified to allow private investment, and was known from 2006 as the Harwell Science and Innovati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uranium-238
Uranium-238 (238U or U-238) is the most common isotope of uranium found in nature, with a relative abundance of 99%. Unlike uranium-235, it is non-fissile, which means it cannot sustain a chain reaction in a thermal-neutron reactor. However, it is fissionable by fast neutrons, and is ''fertile'', meaning it can be transmuted to fissile plutonium-239. 238U cannot support a chain reaction because inelastic scattering reduces neutron energy below the range where fast fission of one or more next-generation nuclei is probable. Doppler broadening of 238U's neutron absorption resonances, increasing absorption as fuel temperature increases, is also an essential negative feedback mechanism for reactor control. Around 99.284% of natural uranium's mass is uranium-238, which has a half-life of 1.41 seconds (4.468 years, or 4.468 billion years). Due to its natural abundance and half-life relative to other radioactive elements, 238U produces ~40% of the radioactive heat produced within th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfred Nobel was a Swedish chemist, engineer, and industrialist most famously known for the invention of dynamite. He died in 1896. In his will, he bequeathed all of his "remaining realisable assets" to be used to establish five prizes which became known as "Nobel Prizes." Nobel Prizes were first awarded in 1901. Nobel Prizes are awarded in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace (Nobel characterized the Peace Prize as "to the person who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses"). In 1968, Sveriges Riksbank (Sweden's central bank) funded the establishment of the Prize in Economi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swiss Alps
The Alpine region of Switzerland, conventionally referred to as the Swiss Alps (german: Schweizer Alpen, french: Alpes suisses, it, Alpi svizzere, rm, Alps svizras), represents a major natural feature of the country and is, along with the Swiss Plateau and the Swiss portion of the Jura Mountains, one of its three main physiographic regions. The Swiss Alps extend over both the Western Alps and the Eastern Alps, encompassing an area sometimes called Central Alps. While the northern ranges from the Bernese Alps to the Appenzell Alps are entirely in Switzerland, the southern ranges from the Mont Blanc massif to the Bernina massif are shared with other countries such as France, Italy, Austria and Liechtenstein. The Swiss Alps comprise almost all the highest mountains of the Alps, such as Dufourspitze (4,634 m), the Dom (4,545 m), the Liskamm (4,527 m), the Weisshorn (4,506 m) and the Matterhorn (4,478 m). The other following major summits can be found in this list of mountains of S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Felix Bloch
Felix Bloch (23 October 1905 – 10 September 1983) was a Swiss-American physicist and Nobel physics laureate who worked mainly in the U.S. He and Edward Mills Purcell were awarded the 1952 Nobel Prize for Physics for "their development of new ways and methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements."Sohlman, M (Ed.) ''Nobel Foundation directory 2003.'' Vastervik, Sweden: AB CO Ekblad; 2003. In 1954–1955, he served for one year as the first Director-General of CERN. Felix Bloch made fundamental theoretical contributions to the understanding of ferromagnetism and electron behavior in crystal lattices. He is also considered one of the developers of nuclear magnetic resonance. Biography Early life, education, and family Bloch was born in Zürich, Switzerland to Jewish parents Gustav and Agnes Bloch. Gustav Bloch, his father, was financially unable to attend University and worked as a wholesale grain dealer in Zürich. Gustav moved to Zürich in 1890 to become a Swiss c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Engadin
The Engadin or Engadine ( rm, ;This is the name in the two Romansh idioms that are spoken in the Engadin, Vallader and Puter, as well as in Sursilvan and Rumantsch Grischun. In Surmiran, the name is ''Nagiadegna'', and in Sutsilvan, it is ''Gidegna''. german: ; it, Engadina; french: Engadine) is a long high Alpine valley region in the eastern Swiss Alps in the canton of Graubünden in southeasternmost Switzerland with about 25,000 inhabitants. It follows the route of the Inn ( rm, En, links=no) from its headwaters at Maloja Pass in the southwest running roughly northeast until the Inn flows into Austria, little less than one hundred kilometers downstream. The En/Inn subsequently flows at Passau into the Danube, making it the only Swiss river to drain into the Black Sea. The Engadine is protected by high mountain ranges on all sides and is famous for its sunny climate, beautiful landscapes and outdoor activities. Name In English, the valley is either known as ''Engadin'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Val Bregaglia
The Val Bregaglia ( lmo, Val Bregaja; german: Bergell, ; rm, ) is an alpine valley of Switzerland and Italy at the base of which runs the river Mera ( lmo, Maira in Switzerland). Most of the valley falls within the Swiss district of Maloja in the canton of the Grisons, the lower part within the Italian province of Sondrio. The valley includes the Swiss former municipalities of Vicosoprano, Stampa, Bondo, Soglio and Castasegna (now consolidated into the municipality of Bregaglia); and the Italian municipalities of Villa di Chiavenna, Piuro, and Chiavenna. The Swiss part of the valley is inhabited by the descendants of Italian Protestants, some descending from those who settled here in the mid-16th century to avoid persecution by the Inquisition, and today about 75% of the population is Protestant. The local dialect is a variety of Lombard with similarities to neighboring dialects of Romansh. Elektrizitätswerk der Stadt Zürich (EWZ) operates three hydroelectric power ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicholas Kemmer
Nicholas Kemmer (7 December 1911 – 21 October 1998) was a Russian-born nuclear physicist working in Britain, who played an integral and leading edge role in United Kingdom's nuclear programme, and was known as a mentor of Abdus Salam – a Nobel laureate in physics. Life Early life Nicholas was born to Nicholas P. Kemmer and Barbara Stutzer in Saint Petersburg. His family moved to Germany in 1922, where he was educated at Bismarckschule Hanover and then at the University of Göttingen. He received his doctorate in nuclear physics at the University of Zurich and worked as an assistant to Wolfgang Pauli, who had to give strong arguments in 1936, before being allowed to employ a non-Swiss national. Later on, Kemmer moved to the Beit Fellowship at Imperial College London. British nuclear development Kemmer moved to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1940 to work on Tube Alloys, the wartime atomic energy project. In 1940, when Egon Bretscher and Norman Feather showed that a slow ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plutonium
Plutonium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibits six allotropes and four oxidation states. It reacts with carbon, halogens, nitrogen, silicon, and hydrogen. When exposed to moist air, it forms oxides and hydrides that can expand the sample up to 70% in volume, which in turn flake off as a powder that is pyrophoric. It is radioactive and can accumulate in bones, which makes the handling of plutonium dangerous. Plutonium was first synthetically produced and isolated in late 1940 and early 1941, by a deuteron bombardment of uranium-238 in the cyclotron at the University of California, Berkeley. First, neptunium-238 ( half-life 2.1 days) was synthesized, which subsequently beta-decayed to form the new element with atomic number 94 and atomic weight 238 (half-life 88 years). Since ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berkeley Radiation Laboratory
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, the United States Department of Energy. Located in the hills of Berkeley, California, the lab overlooks the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, and is managed by the University of California system. History 1931–1941 The laboratory was founded on August 26, 1931, by Ernest Lawrence, as the Radiation Laboratory of the University of California, Berkeley, associated with the Physics Department. It centered physics research around his new instrument, the cyclotron, a type of particle accelerator for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939. Throughout the 1930s, Lawrence pushed to create larger and larger machines for physics research, courting private philanthropists for funding. He was the first to develop a large team to build big projects to make discoveries ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philip Abelson
Philip, also Phillip, is a male given name, derived from the Greek (''Philippos'', lit. "horse-loving" or "fond of horses"), from a compound of (''philos'', "dear", "loved", "loving") and (''hippos'', "horse"). Prominent Philips who popularized the name include kings of Macedonia and one of the apostles of early Christianity. ''Philip'' has many alternative spellings. One derivation often used as a surname is Phillips. It was also found during ancient Greek times with two Ps as Philippides and Philippos. It has many diminutive (or even hypocoristic) forms including Phil, Philly, Lip, Pip, Pep or Peps. There are also feminine forms such as Philippine and Philippa. Antiquity Kings of Macedon * Philip I of Macedon * Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great * Philip III of Macedon, half-brother of Alexander the Great * Philip IV of Macedon * Philip V of Macedon New Testament * Philip the Apostle * Philip the Evangelist Others * Philippus of Croton (c. 6th centur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edwin McMillan
Edwin Mattison McMillan (September 18, 1907 – September 7, 1991) was an American physicist credited with being the first-ever to produce a transuranium element, neptunium. For this, he shared the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Glenn Seaborg. A graduate of California Institute of Technology, he earned his doctorate from Princeton University in 1933, and joined the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory, where he discovered oxygen-15 and beryllium-10. During World War II, he first worked on microwave radar at the MIT Radiation Laboratory, and on sonar at the Navy Radio and Sound Laboratory. In 1942 he joined the Manhattan Project, the wartime effort to create atomic bombs, and he helped establish the project's Los Alamos Laboratory where the bombs were designed. He led teams working on the gun-type nuclear weapon design, and also participated in the development of the successful implosion-type nuclear weapon. McMillan co-invented the synchrotron with Vladimir Veksler, and after th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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