Atomic Environments

Atomic Environments PDF Author: Neil Shafer Oatsvall
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817321462
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
"In "Atomic Environments," Neil S. Oatsvall examines how top policymakers in the Truman and Eisenhower administrations used environmental science in their work developing nuclear strategy at the beginning of the Cold War. While many people were involved in research and analysis during the period in question, it was at highest levels of executive decision-making where environmental science and nuclear science most clearly combined to shape the nation's policies. Because making and testing weapons, dealing with fallout and nuclear waste, and finding uses for radioactive byproducts required advanced understanding of how nuclear systems interacted with the world, policymakers utilized existing networks of environmental scientists-particularly meteorologists, geologists, and ecologists-to understand and control the United States' use of nuclear technology. Instead of profiling individuals, Oatsvall focuses on executive institutions, especially the leadership of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and high level officials in the Truman and Eisenhower White Houses, including the presidents, themselves. By scrutinizing institutional policymaking practices and agendas at the birth of the nuclear age, a constant set of values becomes clear: "Atomic Environments" reveals an emerging technocratic class that consistently valued knowledge about the environment to help create and maintain a nuclear arsenal, despite its existential threat to life on earth and the negative effects many nuclear technologies directly had on ecosystems and the American people, alike. "Atomic Environments" is divided into five chapters, each of which probes a different facet of the entanglement between environment, nuclear technologies, and policymaking. The first three chapters form a rough narrative arc about nuclear weapons. Chapter One situates bombs in their "natural habitat" by considering why nuclear tests occurred where they did and what testers thought they revealed about the natural environment and how they influenced it. Focusing on nuclear fallout, Chapter Two argues that nuclear tests actually functioned as a massive, uncontrolled experiment in world environments and human bodies that intermingled medicine, nuclear science, and environmental science. Chapter Three shows how the environmental knowledge gained in the first two chapters led to nuclear test ban treaty talks during the Eisenhower era, when the advancement of environmental knowledge and the natural world itself became crucial grounds of contention in the creation of nuclear test detection and evasion systems. The last two chapters step away from weapons to question how other nuclear technologies and facets of the U.S. nuclear program interacted with the natural world. Chapter Four examines agriculture's place in the U.S. nuclear program, from breakthrough advances in agricultural science including the use of radioisotopes and the direct application of radiation to food, to "atomic agriculture's" public relations value as a peaceful proxy, which shifted the moral calculus and further leveraged the U.S. government's atomic power. Chapter Five shows how knowledge of the natural world and the functioning of its systems proved important to uncovering the most effective ways to dispose of nuclear waste. Running throughout, Oatsvall consistently demonstrates how the natural world and the scientific disciplines that study it became integral parts of nuclear science, rather than adversarial fields of knowledge. But while nuclear technologies heavily depended on environmental science to develop, those same technologies frequently caused great harm to the natural world. Moreover, while some individuals expressed real anxieties about the damage wrought by nuclear technologies, policymakers as a class consistently made choices that privileged nuclear boosterism and secrecy, prioritizing institutional values over the lives and living systems that agencies like the AEC were ostensibly charged to protect. In the end, Oatsvall argues that although policymakers took their charge to protect and advance the welfare of the United States and its people seriously, they often failed to do so because their allegiance to the U.S. nuclear hierarchy blinded them to the real risks and dangers of the nuclear age"--

Atomic Environments

Atomic Environments PDF Author: Neil Shafer Oatsvall
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817321462
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 263

Get Book Here

Book Description
"In "Atomic Environments," Neil S. Oatsvall examines how top policymakers in the Truman and Eisenhower administrations used environmental science in their work developing nuclear strategy at the beginning of the Cold War. While many people were involved in research and analysis during the period in question, it was at highest levels of executive decision-making where environmental science and nuclear science most clearly combined to shape the nation's policies. Because making and testing weapons, dealing with fallout and nuclear waste, and finding uses for radioactive byproducts required advanced understanding of how nuclear systems interacted with the world, policymakers utilized existing networks of environmental scientists-particularly meteorologists, geologists, and ecologists-to understand and control the United States' use of nuclear technology. Instead of profiling individuals, Oatsvall focuses on executive institutions, especially the leadership of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and high level officials in the Truman and Eisenhower White Houses, including the presidents, themselves. By scrutinizing institutional policymaking practices and agendas at the birth of the nuclear age, a constant set of values becomes clear: "Atomic Environments" reveals an emerging technocratic class that consistently valued knowledge about the environment to help create and maintain a nuclear arsenal, despite its existential threat to life on earth and the negative effects many nuclear technologies directly had on ecosystems and the American people, alike. "Atomic Environments" is divided into five chapters, each of which probes a different facet of the entanglement between environment, nuclear technologies, and policymaking. The first three chapters form a rough narrative arc about nuclear weapons. Chapter One situates bombs in their "natural habitat" by considering why nuclear tests occurred where they did and what testers thought they revealed about the natural environment and how they influenced it. Focusing on nuclear fallout, Chapter Two argues that nuclear tests actually functioned as a massive, uncontrolled experiment in world environments and human bodies that intermingled medicine, nuclear science, and environmental science. Chapter Three shows how the environmental knowledge gained in the first two chapters led to nuclear test ban treaty talks during the Eisenhower era, when the advancement of environmental knowledge and the natural world itself became crucial grounds of contention in the creation of nuclear test detection and evasion systems. The last two chapters step away from weapons to question how other nuclear technologies and facets of the U.S. nuclear program interacted with the natural world. Chapter Four examines agriculture's place in the U.S. nuclear program, from breakthrough advances in agricultural science including the use of radioisotopes and the direct application of radiation to food, to "atomic agriculture's" public relations value as a peaceful proxy, which shifted the moral calculus and further leveraged the U.S. government's atomic power. Chapter Five shows how knowledge of the natural world and the functioning of its systems proved important to uncovering the most effective ways to dispose of nuclear waste. Running throughout, Oatsvall consistently demonstrates how the natural world and the scientific disciplines that study it became integral parts of nuclear science, rather than adversarial fields of knowledge. But while nuclear technologies heavily depended on environmental science to develop, those same technologies frequently caused great harm to the natural world. Moreover, while some individuals expressed real anxieties about the damage wrought by nuclear technologies, policymakers as a class consistently made choices that privileged nuclear boosterism and secrecy, prioritizing institutional values over the lives and living systems that agencies like the AEC were ostensibly charged to protect. In the end, Oatsvall argues that although policymakers took their charge to protect and advance the welfare of the United States and its people seriously, they often failed to do so because their allegiance to the U.S. nuclear hierarchy blinded them to the real risks and dangers of the nuclear age"--

The Atomic West

The Atomic West PDF Author: Bruce W. Hevly
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295800623
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
The Manhattan Project—the World War II race to produce an atomic bomb—transformed the entire country in myriad ways, but it did not affect each region equally. Acting on an enduring perception of the American West as an “empty” place, the U.S. government located a disproportionate number of nuclear facilities—particularly the ones most likely to spread pollution—in western states. The Manhattan Project manufactured plutonium at Hanford, Washington; designed and assembled bombs at Los Alamos, New Mexico; and detonated the world’s first atomic bomb at Alamagordo, New Mexico, on June 16, 1945. In the years that followed the war, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission selected additional western sites for its work. Many westerners initially welcomed the atom. Like federal officials, they, too, regarded their region as “empty,” or underdeveloped. Facilities to make, test, and base atomic weapons, sites to store nuclear waste, and even nuclear power plants were regarded as assets. By the 1960s and 1970s, however, regional attitudes began to change. At a variety of locales, ranging from Eskimo Alaska to Mormon Utah, westerners devoted themselves to resisting the atom and its effects on their environments and communities. Just as the atomic age had dawned in the American West, so its artificial sun began to set there. The Atomic West brings together contributions from several disciplines to explore the impact on the West of the development of atomic power from wartime secrecy and initial postwar enthusiasm to public doubts and protest in the 1970s and 1980s. An impressive example of the benefits of interdisciplinary studies on complex topics, The Atomic West advances our understanding of both regional history and the history of science, and does so with human communities as a significant focal point. The book will be of special interest to students and experts on the American West, environmental history, and the history of science and technology.

Atomic Geography

Atomic Geography PDF Author: Melvin R. Adams
Publisher: Washington State University Press
ISBN: 1636820425
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
“I have spent a career sifting through the rubble, the abandoned documents, the factories and tools, with the thought of saving what remains of water, land, and animals. But water, wind, and root have their way.”--Melvin R. Adams Perhaps the first environmental engineer at Hanford, Adams spent twenty-four years on its 586 square miles. His thoughtful vignettes recall challenges and sites he worked on or found personally intriguing, like the 216-U-pond. Nestled among the trees, the pond looks like a pleasant place to go fishing. In reality, it has been contaminated with plutonium longer than any other place on earth. In what Adams considers his most successful project, he helped determine the initial scope of the soil and solid waste cleanup. The Environmental Restoration and Disposal Facility today covers 107 acres and has a capacity of 18 million tons. His group also designed and tested a marked, maintenance-free disposal barrier. It uses natural materials that will remain stable for thousands of years. They expanded a network of groundwater monitoring wells to define contaminated plumes, assess treatment effectiveness, and provide relevant data to hydrologists. They also developed a pilot scale pump and treatment plant for use on a four-square-mile carbon tetrachloride plume. His environmental and engineering unit included a biological control group fondly dubbed “The Weeds.” They controlled tumbleweeds, tracked and collected plants and animals found growing or digging in contaminated sites, and caught stray wildlife discovered in Hanford offices. In Atomic Geography, Adams presents some surprising revelations. He shares his perspective on leaking high-level waste storage tanks, dosimeters, and Hanford’s obsession with safety. He answers the question he is asked most, insisting he does not glow in the dark. He leaves that to spent fuel rods in water storage basins--a phenomenon known as Cherenkov radiation.

Programming Languages and Systems

Programming Languages and Systems PDF Author: Jan Vitek
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3662466694
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 851

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Book Description
This book constitutes the proceedings of the 24th European Symposium on Programming, ESOP 2015, which took place in London, UK, in April 2015, held as Part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2015. The 33 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 113 submissions.

The Modal Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

The Modal Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics PDF Author: Dennis Dieks
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9780792352075
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
According to the modal interpretation, the standard mathematical framework of quantum mechanics specifies the physical magnitudes of a system, which have definite values. Probabilities are assigned to the possible values that these magnitudes may adopt. The interpretation is thus concerned with physical properties rather than with measurement results: it is a realistic interpretation (in the sense of scientific realism). One of the notable achievements of this interpretation is that it dissolves the notorious measurement problem. The papers collected here, together with the introduction and concluding critical appraisal, explain the various forms of the modal interpretation, survey its achievements, and discuss those problems that have yet to be solved. Audience: Philosophers of science, theoretical physicists, and graduate students in these disciplines.

Dislocations in Solids

Dislocations in Solids PDF Author:
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0080932959
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
Bacon and Osetsky present an atomistic model of dislocation-particle interactions in metal systems, including irradiated materials. This work is important in simulating actual behavior, removing earlier reliance on assumed mechanisms for dislocation motion. New mechanisms for dislocation generation under shock loading are presented by Meyers et al. These models provide a basis for understanding the constitutive behavior of shocked material. Saada and Dirras provide a new perspective on the Hall-Petch relation, with particular emphasis on nanocrystals. Of particular significance, deviations from the traditional stress proportional to the square-root of grain size relation are explained. Robertson et al consider a number of effects of hydrogen on plastic flow and provide a model that provides an explanation of the broad range of properties. - Flow stress of metal systems with particle hardening, including radiation effects - New model for dislocation kinetics under shock loading - Explanation of effects of nanoscale grain size on strength - Mechanism of hydrogen embrittlement in metal alloys

Machine Learning Meets Quantum Physics

Machine Learning Meets Quantum Physics PDF Author: Kristof T. Schütt
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030402452
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 473

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Book Description
Designing molecules and materials with desired properties is an important prerequisite for advancing technology in our modern societies. This requires both the ability to calculate accurate microscopic properties, such as energies, forces and electrostatic multipoles of specific configurations, as well as efficient sampling of potential energy surfaces to obtain corresponding macroscopic properties. Tools that can provide this are accurate first-principles calculations rooted in quantum mechanics, and statistical mechanics, respectively. Unfortunately, they come at a high computational cost that prohibits calculations for large systems and long time-scales, thus presenting a severe bottleneck both for searching the vast chemical compound space and the stupendously many dynamical configurations that a molecule can assume. To overcome this challenge, recently there have been increased efforts to accelerate quantum simulations with machine learning (ML). This emerging interdisciplinary community encompasses chemists, material scientists, physicists, mathematicians and computer scientists, joining forces to contribute to the exciting hot topic of progressing machine learning and AI for molecules and materials. The book that has emerged from a series of workshops provides a snapshot of this rapidly developing field. It contains tutorial material explaining the relevant foundations needed in chemistry, physics as well as machine learning to give an easy starting point for interested readers. In addition, a number of research papers defining the current state-of-the-art are included. The book has five parts (Fundamentals, Incorporating Prior Knowledge, Deep Learning of Atomistic Representations, Atomistic Simulations and Discovery and Design), each prefaced by editorial commentary that puts the respective parts into a broader scientific context.

AI-Guided Design and Property Prediction for Zeolites and Nanoporous Materials

AI-Guided Design and Property Prediction for Zeolites and Nanoporous Materials PDF Author: German Sastre
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 111981975X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description
A cohesive and insightful compilation of resources explaining the latest discoveries and methods in the field of nanoporous materials In Artificial Intelligence for Zeolites and Nanoporous Materials: Design, Synthesis and Properties Prediction a team of distinguished researchers delivers a robust compilation of the latest knowledge and most recent developments in computational chemistry, synthetic chemistry, and artificial intelligence as it applies to zeolites, porous molecular materials, covalent organic frameworks and metal-organic frameworks. The book presents a common language that unifies these fields of research and advances the discovery of new nanoporous materials. The editors have included resources that describe strategies to synthesize new nanoporous materials, construct databases of materials, structure directing agents, and synthesis conditions, and explain computational methods to generate new materials. They also offer material that discusses AI and machine learning algorithms, as well as other, similar approaches to the field. Readers will also find a comprehensive approach to artificial intelligence applied to and written in the language of materials chemistry, guiding the reader through the fundamental questions on how far computer algorithms and numerical representations can drive our search of new nanoporous materials for specific applications. Designed for academic researchers and industry professionals with an interest in synthetic nanoporous materials chemistry, Artificial Intelligence for Zeolites and Nanoporous Materials: Design, Synthesis and Properties Prediction will also earn a place in the libraries of professionals working in large energy, chemical, and biochemical companies with responsibilities related to the design of new nanoporous materials.

Mössbauer Spectroscopy Applied to Magnetism and Materials Science

Mössbauer Spectroscopy Applied to Magnetism and Materials Science PDF Author: G.J Long
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1489917632
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
This book represents Volume 2 in a series on the use of Mossbauer spectroscopy in the study of magnetism and materials. However, the perceptive reader will notice some differences from Volume 1. Specifically, in order to market the book at a more affordable price for most universities and research laboratories, the book has been prepared in camera ready format The editors and the authors agreed to do this because there is a demand for such a book in the Mossbauer community. This format has placed an extra burden on the editors and the authors and we hope we have overcome all the difficulties generated by the transfer of files between different computers. In order to make the book more attractive to materials scientists who are not experts in Mossbauer spectroscopy, this volume is particularly oriented towards the study of materials by Mossbauer spectroscopy and related complementary techniques, such as neutron scattering and a variety of surface scattering techniques. The authors of this volume can be proud of the high quality professional effort they have devoted to clearly presenting their specific topics. As a result we very much enjoyed working with the authors on this volume. We hope that their effort will help to educate the next generation of Mossbauer effect spectroscopists, a generation which will face the challenge of maintaining equally high scientific and professional standards in their research work.

Physics and Chemistry of Finite Systems: From Clusters to Crystals

Physics and Chemistry of Finite Systems: From Clusters to Crystals PDF Author: Peru Jena
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401726450
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1414

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Book Description
Recent innovations in experimental techniques such as molecular and cluster beam epitaxy, supersonic jet expansion, matrix isolation and chemical synthesis are increasingly enabling researchers to produce materials by design and with atomic dimension. These materials constrained by sire, shape, and symmetry range from clusters containing as few as two atoms to nanoscale materials consisting of thousands of atoms. They possess unique structuraI, electronic, magnetic and optical properties that depend strongly on their size and geometry. The availability of these materials raises many fundamental questions as weIl as technological possibilities. From the academic viewpoint, the most pertinent question concerns the evolution of the atomic and electronic structure of the system as it grows from micro clusters to crystals. At what stage, for example, does the cluster look as if it is a fragment of the corresponding crystal. How do electrons forming bonds in micro-clusters transform to bands in solids? How do the size dependent properties change from discrete quantum conditions, as in clusters, to boundary constrained bulk conditions, as in nanoscale materials, to bulk conditions insensitive to boundaries? How do the criteria of classification have to be changed as one goes from one size domain to another? Potential for high technological applications also seem to be endless. Clusters of otherwise non-magnetic materials exhibit magnetic behavior when constrained by size, shape, and dimension. NanoscaIe metal particles exhibit non-linear opticaI properties and increased mechanical strength. SimiIarly, materials made from nanoscale ceramic particIes possess plastic behavior.