URRs and Nobel Prizes

Autor: Thomas E. Mason
Rok vydání: 2002
Předmět:
Zdroj: Science. 296:656-656
ISSN: 1095-9203
0036-8075
Popis: Kenneth Rogers describes the role of university research reactors (URRs) and the current funding difficulties they are experiencing (Policy Forum, “The past and future of university research reactors,” 22 March, p. [2217][1]). In explaining contributions URRs have made to fields beyond nuclear science and engineering, he states, “The 1994 Nobel Prizes in physics were awarded to two individuals for work carried out at URRs.” The 1994 Nobel Prize in Physics was shared by Bertram Brockhouse and Clifford Shull for their pioneering role in the development of neutron spectroscopy and diffraction. This research was done at the National Research Experimental (NRX) and National Research Universal (NRU) reactors at the Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories and the Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, respectively. Brockhouse and Shull subsequently took up faculty appointments at universities operating URRs (McMaster University and MIT, respectively); however, it was their earlier groundbreaking studies in Chalk River and Oak Ridge that were the basis for the Nobel Prize. Further details regarding the contributions made by Brockhouse and Shull and the facilities they used, as well as some autobiographical information, may be found on the excellent Nobel Prize Web site ([www.nobel.se/physics/laureates/1994/index.html][2]). The Department of Energy user facility currently under construction, to which Rogers refers in the final paragraph, is the Spallation Neutron Source (“National” having been dropped when the project was approved in 1998). # Response {#article-title-2} The sentence that Mason quotes was intended to illustrate the high scientific caliber (Nobel laureates) and the general area (physics) of the work carried out over the major portions of their scientific careers by several users of URRs. Shull and Brockhouse were awarded the Nobel Prize approximately 10 years after their retirements. Although the research that they did earlier in their careers at government laboratory reactors undoubtedly influenced the work that they and many others carried out at URRs, their Nobel Prize was awarded after they had spent 31 and 22 years, respectively, at universities with URRs. [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1070936 [2]: http://www.nobel.se/physics/laureates/1994/index.html
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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