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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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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The Frisch-Peierls memorandum: A seminal document of nuclear history
The Manhattan Project is usually considered to have been initiated with Albert Einstein’s letter to President Franklin Roosevelt in October 1939. However, a lesser-known document that was just as impactful on wartime nuclear history was the so-called Frisch-Peierls memorandum. Prepared by two refugee physicists at the University of Birmingham in Britain in early 1940, this manuscript was the first technical description of nuclear weapons and their military, strategic, and ethical implications to reach high-level government officials on either side of the Atlantic. The memorandum triggered the initiation of the British wartime nuclear program, which later merged with the Manhattan Engineer District.
R. L. Macklin, J. H. Gibbons, E. Ricci, T. Handley, D. Cuneo
Nuclear Technology | Volume 5 | Number 4 | October 1968 | Pages 269-274
Technical Paper and Note | doi.org/10.13182/NT68-A28030
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Prompt radiations from the reactions 7Li(p, n) and 19F(p, αγ) have been applied to measure concentrations of the target nuclei in graphite using protons from the ORNL 3-MV Van de Graaff accelerator. A sample irradiated nine months in the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment shows over a hundred times the lithium and fluorine penetration found in an unirradiated control sample.