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Henry DeWolf Smyth
Henry DeWolf "Harry" Smyth (; May 1, 1898September 11, 1986) was an American physicist, diplomat, and bureaucrat. He played a number of key roles in the early development of Nuclear power, nuclear energy, as a participant in the Manhattan Project, a member of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), and U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Educated at Princeton University and the University of Cambridge, he was a faculty member in Princeton's Department of Physics from 1924 to 1966. He chaired the department from 1935 to 1949. His early research was on the ionization of gases, but his interests shifted toward nuclear physics beginning in the mid-1930s. During World War II he was a member of the National Defense Research Committee's Uranium Committee and a consultant on the Manhattan Project. He wrote the Manhattan Project's first public official history, which came to be known as the Smyth Report. On the AEC from 1949 to 1954, Smyth initially argu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clinton, Oneida County, New York
Clinton (or ''Ka-dah-wis-dag'', "white field" in Seneca language) is a village in Oneida County, New York, United States. The population was 1,942 at the 2010 census. It was named for George Clinton, the first Governor of New York. The Village of Clinton, site of Hamilton College, is within the Town of Kirkland. The village was known as the "village of schools" due to the large number of private schools operating in the village during the 19th century. History Part of Coxe's Patent, 6th division, Clinton began in March 1787 when Revolutionary War veterans from Plymouth, Connecticut, settled in Clinton. Pioneer Moses Foote brought seven other families with him to the area. The new inhabitants found good soil, plentiful forests, and friendly Brothertown Indians in southern Kirkland along with Oneida people, who passed through on trails. Named after New York's first governor, George Clinton, an uncle of Erie Canal builder and governor DeWitt Clinton, the village had a gri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Power
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, ''fusion'' power remains the focus of international research. Most nuclear power plants use thermal reactors with enriched uranium in a Nuclear fuel cycle#Once-through nuclear fuel cycle, once-through fuel cycle. Fuel is removed when the percentage of neutron poison, neutron absorbing atoms becomes so large that a nuclear chain reaction, chain reaction can no longer be sustained, typically three years. It is then cooled for several years in on-site spent fuel pools before being tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT, is an international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament and general and complete disarmament. Between 1965 and 1968, the treaty was negotiated by the Eighteen Nation Committee on Disarmament, a United Nations-sponsored organization based in Geneva, Switzerland. Opened for signature in 1968, the treaty entered into force in 1970. As required by the text, after twenty-five years, NPT Parties met in May 1995 and agreed to extend the treaty indefinitely. More countries are parties to the NPT than any other arms limitation and disarmament agreement, a testament to the treaty's significance. As of August 2016, 191 states have become parties to the treaty, though North Korea, which acceded in 1985 but nev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Security Clearance
A security clearance is a status granted to individuals allowing them access to classified information (state or organizational secrets) or to restricted areas, after completion of a thorough background check. The term "security clearance" is also sometimes used in private organizations that have a formal process to vet employees for access to sensitive information. A clearance by itself is normally not sufficient to gain access; the organization must also determine that the cleared individual needs to know specific information. No individual is supposed to be granted automatic access to classified information solely because of rank, position, or a security clearance. Canada Background Government classified information is governed by the Treasury Board Standard on Security Screening, the ''Security of Information Act'' and '' Privacy Act''. Only those that are deemed to be loyal and reliable, and have been cleared are allowed to access sensitive information. The policy w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oppenheimer Security Hearing
The Oppenheimer security hearing was a 1954 proceeding by the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) that explored the background, actions, and associations of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American scientist who had headed the Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II, where he played a key part in the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb. The hearing resulted in Oppenheimer's Q clearance being revoked. This marked the end of his formal relationship with the government of the United States, and generated considerable controversy regarding whether the treatment of Oppenheimer was fair, or whether it was an expression of anti-Communist McCarthyism. Doubts about Oppenheimer's loyalty dated back to the 1930s, when he was a member of numerous Communist front organizations, and was associated with Communist Party USA members, including his wife and his brother. These associations were known to Army Counterintelligence at the time he was made director of the Los Alamos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Weapons
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. The first test of a fission ("atomic") bomb released an amount of energy approximately equal to . The first thermonuclear ("hydrogen") bomb test released energy approximately equal to . Nuclear bombs have had yields between 10 tons TNT (the W54) and 50 megatons for the Tsar Bomba (see TNT equivalent). A thermonuclear weapon weighing as little as can release energy equal to more than . A nuclear device no larger than a conventional bomb can devastate an entire city by blast, fire, and radiation. Since they are weapons of mass destruction, the proliferation of nuclear weapons is a focus of international relations policy. Nuclear weapons have been deployed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hydrogen Bomb
A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lower mass, or a combination of these benefits. Characteristics of nuclear fusion reactions make possible the use of non-fissile depleted uranium as the weapon's main fuel, thus allowing more efficient use of scarce fissile material such as uranium-235 () or plutonium-239 (). The Ivy Mike, first full-scale thermonuclear test was carried out by the United States in 1952; the concept has since been employed by most of the world's List of states with nuclear weapons, nuclear powers in the design of their weapons. Modern fusion weapons consist essentially of two main components: a nuclear fission primary stage (fueled by or ) and a separate nuclear fusion secondary stage containing thermonuclear fuel: the heavy hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uranium Committee
The S-1 Executive Committee laid the groundwork for the Manhattan Project by initiating and coordinating the early research efforts in the United States, and liaising with the Tube Alloys Project in Britain. In the wake of the discovery of nuclear fission in December 1938, the possibility that Nazi Germany might develop nuclear weapons prompted Leo Szilard and Eugene Wigner to draft the Einstein–Szilárd letter to the President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, in August 1939. In response, the Advisory Committee on Uranium was created at the National Bureau of Standards under the chairmanship of Lyman J. Briggs to determine the feasibility of nuclear weapons. In June 1940, the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) was created to coordinate defense-related research, and the Advisory Committee on Uranium became the Uranium Committee of the NDRC. In June 1941, Roosevelt created the Office of Scientific Research and Development under the leadership of Vannevar Bush ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Defense Research Committee
The National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) was an organization created "to coordinate, supervise, and conduct scientific research on the problems underlying the development, production, and use of mechanisms and devices of warfare" in the United States from June 27, 1940, until June 28, 1941. Most of its work was done with the strictest secrecy, and it began research of what would become some of the most important technology during World War II, including radar and the atomic bomb. It was superseded by the Office of Scientific Research and Development in 1941, and reduced to merely an advisory organization until it was eventually terminated during 1947. Organization The NDRC was created by an order of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on June 27, 1940. It was part of the Council of National Defense, which had been created during 1916 to coordinate industry and resources for national security purposes. Vannevar Bush, the director of the Carnegie Institution, had pressed for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Physics
Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter. Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the atom as a whole, including its electrons. Discoveries in nuclear physics have led to applications in many fields. This includes nuclear power, nuclear weapons, nuclear medicine and magnetic resonance imaging, industrial and agricultural isotopes, ion implantation in materials engineering, and radiocarbon dating in geology and archaeology. Such applications are studied in the field of nuclear engineering. Particle physics evolved out of nuclear physics and the two fields are typically taught in close association. Nuclear astrophysics, the application of nuclear physics to astrophysics, is crucial in explaining the inner workings of stars and the origin of the chemical elements. History The history of nuclear physics as a discipl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ionization
Ionization, or Ionisation is the process by which an atom or a molecule acquires a negative or positive charge by gaining or losing electrons, often in conjunction with other chemical changes. The resulting electrically charged atom or molecule is called an ion. Ionization can result from the loss of an electron after collisions with subatomic particles, collisions with other atoms, molecules and ions, or through the interaction with electromagnetic radiation. Heterolytic bond cleavage and heterolytic substitution reactions can result in the formation of ion pairs. Ionization can occur through radioactive decay by the internal conversion process, in which an excited nucleus transfers its energy to one of the inner-shell electrons causing it to be ejected. Uses Everyday examples of gas ionization are such as within a fluorescent lamp or other electrical discharge lamps. It is also used in radiation detectors such as the Geiger-Müller counter or the ionization chamber. The ionizati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
