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Division Spotlight
Young Members Group
The Young Members Group works to encourage and enable all young professional members to be actively involved in the efforts and endeavors of the Society at all levels (Professional Divisions, ANS Governance, Local Sections, etc.) as they transition from the role of a student to the role of a professional. It sponsors non-technical workshops and meetings that provide professional development and networking opportunities for young professionals, collaborates with other Divisions and Groups in developing technical and non-technical content for topical and national meetings, encourages its members to participate in the activities of the Groups and Divisions that are closely related to their professional interests as well as in their local sections, introduces young members to the rules and governance structure of the Society, and nominates young professionals for awards and leadership opportunities available to members.
Meeting Spotlight
ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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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.”
Peter Glück
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 24 | Number 1 | August 1993 | Pages 122-126
Technical Notes on Cold Fusion | doi.org/10.13182/FST93-A30180
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The lack of reproducibility of the cold fusion experiments, aggravated by the great diversity and inconsistency of the positive results, implies that these nuclear phenomena are hypersensitive, i.e., correlated to a “chaotic” factor. All the factors considered so far, such as structure, transformations, or defects of the crystal lattice; bubbles of deuterium; dendrites, etc., are insufficiently chaotic to explain the known facts. Experimental data suggest that nuclear reactions take place in active sites on the surface of the lattice, that they are stimulated by dynamics factors, and that they represent an extreme form of heterogeneous catalysis. Consequently, according to modern ideas concerning catalysis, the desired chaotic factor is the surface dynamics of some metallic deutendes (hydrides). This hypothesis, called the surfdyn concept, is compatible with all published data, explains the peculiarities of cold fusion, and must be supported by an adequate theory describing the nature and mechanisms of the different nuclear processes.