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General Kenneth Nichols and the Manhattan Project
Nichols
The Oak Ridger has published the latest in a series of articles about General Kenneth D. Nichols, the Manhattan Project, and the 1954 Atomic Energy Act. The series has been produced by Nichols’ grandniece Barbara Rogers Scollin and Oak Ridge (Tenn.) city historian David Ray Smith. Gen. Nichols (1907–2000) was the district engineer for the Manhattan Engineer District during the Manhattan Project.
As Smith and Scollin explain, Nichols “had supervision of the research and development connected with, and the design, construction, and operation of, all plants required to produce plutonium-239 and uranium-235, including the construction of the towns of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Richland, Washington. The responsibility of his position was massive as he oversaw a workforce of both military and civilian personnel of approximately 125,000; his Oak Ridge office became the center of the wartime atomic energy’s activities.”
Albert G. Gu, Robert K. F. Teng, Mark S. Miller, Wayne J. Sprouse
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 16 | Number 2 | September 1989 | Pages 248-250
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/FST89-A29156
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A series of experiments using deuterium gas and deuterium plasma in the presence of palladium has been designed to observe the possibility of cold fusion. Two kinds of preliminary experiments were recently performed. One involved the diffusion of deuterium gas into palladium. The gas was cooled by liquid nitrogen, and then the temperature was permitted to rise to room temperature, going from near −34 to 19°C (−30 to 67°F) in 75 min. A spherical lithium neutron detector, 21 cm from the palladium, gave an audible indication of neutron levels approximately equal to, but above, background. A second experiment used a deuterium ion beam (1 keV) that bombarded a palladium target. An average counting rate of 36 ± 6 counts for 2 min was measured by a BF3 tube with a paraffin moderator, 50 cm from the target. The background varied from 1 to 7 counts for each 2-min counting period and averaged 4 ± 2 counts in 2 min. A nitrogen ion beam impinging on the same palladium target produced 6 counts for a 2-min counting period. The palladium specimens were a piece of foil and a tube that was used as a palladium leak in a neutron generator. These preliminary experiments will be repeated, improved, and extended later.