Radiation Safety
Protection and Management for Homeland Security and Emergency Response
Chapter One
NUCLEAR FEAR-THE GODZILLA
OF ALL FEARS
'A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies'
-Oscar Wilde
In the early 1940s, nuclear technology in America was a burgeoning field
rife with possibilities for potential weaponry to be put to use in World War
II. The year 1942 saw the world's first nuclear reactor, which was fashioned
from a crude pile of uranium and graphite out of which cadmium rods (able
to absorb neutrons) protruded. This ambitious experiment-stacked on the
floor of a squash court at the University of Chicago and surrounded by concrete
walls-was inauspiciously referred to as Chicago Pile-1.
When the cadmium rods were removed from the pile, neutrons were
released, which caused fission and the splitting of atoms-hence, the creation
of the first man-made nuclear reactor. In that same moment, something in the
world shifted imperceptibly: Nuclear energy had gone fr ... read full excerpt from Radiation Safety: Protection and Management for Homeland Security and Emergency Response ebook
