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Critical conditions in neutron multiplication

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

R. Peierls
Affiliation:
The UniversityBirmingham

Extract

It is well known that a single neutron may cause a nuclear reaction chain of considerable magnitude, if it moves in a medium in which the number of secondary neutrons which are produced by neutron impact is, on the average, greater than the number of absorbed neutrons. From recent experiments it would appear that this condition might be satisfied in the case of uranium.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge Philosophical Society 1939

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References

* Feather, N., Nature, 143 (1939), 877.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

[Note added in proof.] This is now made almost certain by the investigations of Bohr and Wheeler in course of publication in the Physical Review.

* Perrin, F., C.R. Acad. Sci., Paris, 208 (1939), 1394.Google Scholar

Cf. Hopf, E., Cambridge Tracts in Mathematics and Mathematical Physics, No. 31 (1934), 54Google Scholar, equation (178).