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RaLa Experiment
The RaLa Experiment, or RaLa, was a series of tests during and after the Manhattan Project designed to study the behavior of converging shock waves to achieve the spherical implosion necessary for compression of the plutonium pit of the nuclear weapon. The experiment used significant amounts of a short-lived radioisotope lanthanum-140, a potent source of gamma radiation; the RaLa is a contraction of Radioactive Lanthanum. The method was proposed by Robert Serber and developed by a team led by the Italian experimental physicist Bruno Rossi. The tests were performed with 1/8 inch (3.2 mm) spheres of radioactive lanthanum, equal to about and later , located in the center of a simulated nuclear device. The explosive lenses were designed primarily using this series of tests. Some 254 tests were conducted between September 1944 and March 1962. In his history of the Los Alamos project, David Hawkins wrote: “RaLa became the most important single experiment affecting the final bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory that designed the actual bombs. The Army component of the project was designated the Manhattan District as its first headquarters were in Manhattan; the placename gradually superseded the official codename, Development of Substitute Materials, for the entire project. Along the way, the project absorbed its earlier British counterpart, Tube Alloys. The Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939, but grew to employ more than 130,000 people and cost nearly US$2 billion (equivalent to about $ billion in ). Over 90 percent of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radiation Intensity
In physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or through a material medium. This includes: * ''electromagnetic radiation'', such as radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, x-rays, and gamma radiation (γ) * ''particle radiation'', such as alpha radiation (α), beta radiation (β), proton radiation and neutron radiation (particles of non-zero rest energy) * '' acoustic radiation'', such as ultrasound, sound, and seismic waves (dependent on a physical transmission medium) * ''gravitational radiation'', that takes the form of gravitational waves, or ripples in the curvature of spacetime Radiation is often categorized as either ''ionizing'' or ''non-ionizing'' depending on the energy of the radiated particles. Ionizing radiation carries more than 10 eV, which is enough to ionize atoms and molecules and break chemical bonds. This is an important distinction due to the large difference i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Preamplifier
A preamplifier, also known as a preamp, is an electronic amplifier that converts a weak electrical signal into an output signal strong enough to be noise-tolerant and strong enough for further processing, or for sending to a power amplifier and a loudspeaker. Without this, the final signal would be noisy or distorted. They are typically used to amplify signals from analog sensors such as microphones and pickups. Because of this, the preamplifier is often placed close to the sensor to reduce the effects of noise and interference. Description An ideal preamp will be linear (have a constant gain through its operating range), have high input impedance (requiring only a minimal amount of current to sense the input signal) and a low output impedance (when current is drawn from the output there is minimal change in the output voltage). It is used to boost the signal strength to drive the cable to the main instrument without significantly degrading the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Camera
A camera is an Optics, optical instrument that can capture an image. Most cameras can capture 2D images, with some more advanced models being able to capture 3D images. At a basic level, most cameras consist of sealed boxes (the camera body), with a small hole (the aperture) that allows light to pass through in order to capture an image on a light-sensitive surface (usually a Image sensor, digital sensor or photographic film). Cameras have various mechanisms to control how the light falls onto the light-sensitive surface. Lenses focus the light entering the camera, and the aperture can be narrowed or widened. A Shutter (photography), shutter mechanism determines the amount of time the photosensitive surface is exposed to the light. The still image camera is the main instrument in the art of photography. Captured images may be reproduced later as part of the process of photography, digital imaging, or photographic printing. Similar artistic fields in the moving-image camera dom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oscilloscope
An oscilloscope (informally a scope) is a type of electronic test instrument that graphically displays varying electrical voltages as a two-dimensional plot of one or more signals as a function of time. The main purposes are to display repetitive or single waveforms on the screen that would otherwise occur too briefly to be perceived by the human eye. The displayed waveform can then be analyzed for properties such as amplitude, frequency, rise time, time interval, distortion, and others. Originally, calculation of these values required manually measuring the waveform against the scales built into the screen of the instrument. Modern digital instruments may calculate and display these properties directly. Oscilloscopes are used in the sciences, medicine, engineering, automotive and the telecommunications industry. General-purpose instruments are used for maintenance of electronic equipment and laboratory work. Special-purpose oscilloscopes may be used to analyze an automotive ign ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fishing Rod
A fishing rod is a long, thin rod used by angling, anglers to fishing, catch fish by manipulating a fishing line, line ending in a fish hook, hook (formerly known as an ''angle'', hence the term "angling"). At its most basic form, a fishing rod is a straight rigid stick/pole with a line attached to one end (as seen in traditional Tenkara fishing); however, modern rods are usually elastic and generally have the line stored in a fishing reel, reel mounted at the rod handle, which is hand-cranked and controls the line retrieval, as well as numerous line-restricting rings (also known as ''line guides'') that distribute bending stress along the rod and help dampening down/prevent line whipping and entanglement. To better entice fish, fishing bait, baits or fishing lure, lures are dressed onto the one or more hooks attached to the line, and a bite indicator is used, some of which (e.g. quiver tip) might be incorporated as part of the rod itself. Fishing rod acts as an extended leve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radioactive Contamination
Radioactive contamination, also called radiological pollution, is the deposition of, or presence of radioactive substances on surfaces or within solids, liquids, or gases (including the human body), where their presence is unintended or undesirable (from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) definition). Such contamination presents a hazard because the radioactive decay of the contaminants, produces ionizing radiation (namely alpha, beta, gamma rays and free neutrons). The degree of hazard is determined by the concentration of the contaminants, the energy of the radiation being emitted, the type of radiation, and the proximity of the contamination to organs of the body. It is important to be clear that the contamination gives rise to the radiation hazard, and the terms "radiation" and "contamination" are not interchangeable. The sources of radioactive pollution can be classified into two groups: natural and man-made. Following an atmospheric nuclear weapon discharge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strontium-90
Strontium-90 () is a radioactive isotope of strontium produced by nuclear fission, with a half-life of 28.8 years. It undergoes β− decay into yttrium-90, with a decay energy of 0.546 MeV. Strontium-90 has applications in medicine and industry and is an isotope of concern in fallout from nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons testing, and nuclear accidents. Radioactivity Naturally occurring strontium is nonradioactive and nontoxic at levels normally found in the environment, but 90Sr is a radiation hazard. 90Sr undergoes β− decay with a half-life of 28.79 years and a decay energy of 0.546 MeV distributed to an electron, an antineutrino, and the yttrium isotope 90Y, which in turn undergoes β− decay with a half-life of 64 hours and a decay energy of 2.28 MeV distributed to an electron, an antineutrino, and 90Zr (zirconium), which is stable. Note that 90Sr/Y is almost a pure beta particle source; the gamma photon emission from the decay of 90Y is so infrequent that it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caesium-140
Caesium (55Cs) has 40 known isotopes, making it, along with barium and mercury, one of the elements with the most isotopes. The atomic masses of these isotopes range from 112 to 151. Only one isotope, 133Cs, is stable. The longest-lived radioisotopes are 135Cs with a half-life of 2.3 million years, with a half-life of 30.1671 years and 134Cs with a half-life of 2.0652 years. All other isotopes have half-lives less than 2 weeks, most under an hour. Beginning in 1945 with the commencement of nuclear testing, caesium radioisotopes were released into the atmosphere where caesium is absorbed readily into solution and is returned to the surface of the earth as a component of radioactive fallout. Once caesium enters the ground water, it is deposited on soil surfaces and removed from the landscape primarily by particle transport. As a result, the input function of these isotopes can be estimated as a function of time. List of isotopes , - , rowspan=2, 112Cs , rowspan=2 style="text-a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barium-140
Naturally occurring barium (56Ba) is a mix of six stable isotopes and one very long-lived radioactive primordial isotope, barium-130, identified as being unstable by geochemical means (from analysis of the presence of its daughter xenon-130 in rocks) in 2001. This nuclide decays by double electron capture (absorbing two electrons and emitting two neutrinos), with a half-life of (0.5–2.7)×1021 years (about 1011 times the age of the universe). There are a total of thirty-three known radioisotopes in addition to 130Ba. The longest-lived of these is 133Ba, which has a half-life of 10.51 years. All other radioisotopes have half-lives shorter than two weeks. The longest-lived isomer is 133mBa, which has a half-life of 38.9 hours. The shorter-lived 137mBa (half-life 2.55 minutes) arises as the decay product of the common fission product caesium-137. Barium-114 is predicted to undergo cluster decay, emitting a nucleus of stable 12C to produce 102Sn. However this decay is not yet ob ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fission Product
Nuclear fission products are the atomic fragments left after a large atomic nucleus undergoes nuclear fission. Typically, a large nucleus like that of uranium fissions by splitting into two smaller nuclei, along with a few neutrons, the release of heat energy (kinetic energy of the nuclei), and gamma rays. The two smaller nuclei are the ''fission products''. (See also Fission products (by element)). About 0.2% to 0.4% of fissions are ternary fissions, producing a third light nucleus such as helium-4 (90%) or tritium (7%). The fission products themselves are usually unstable and therefore radioactive. Due to being relatively neutron-rich for their atomic number, many of them quickly undergo beta decay. This releases additional energy in the form of beta particles, antineutrinos, and gamma rays. Thus, fission events normally result in beta and gamma radiation, even though this radiation is not produced directly by the fission event itself. The produced radionuclides have varyi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parent Nuclide
In nuclear physics, a decay product (also known as a daughter product, daughter isotope, radio-daughter, or daughter nuclide) is the remaining nuclide left over from radioactive decay. Radioactive decay often proceeds via a sequence of steps (decay chain). For example, uranium-238, 238U decays to thorium, 234Th which decays to Isotopes_of_protactinium#Protactinium-234, 234mPa which decays, and so on, to 206Pb (which is stable): : \ce \overbrace^\ce file:Thorium decay chain from lead-212 to lead-208.svg, left, upThe decay chain from lead-212 down to lead-208, showing the intermediate decay products In this example: * 234Th, 234mPa,...,206Pb are the decay products of 238U. * 234Th is the daughter of the parent 238U. * 234mPa (234 nuclear isomer, metastable) is the granddaughter of 238U. These might also be referred to as the daughter products of 238U. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
