Abstract
Perhaps no other materials in history have had the concentrated attention, the dedication of financial resources, and the limited application than have been shared by plutonium and uranium (1,2). The groundwork for their elevation to such prominent positions was laid in 1919 by Rutherford’s work on nuclear disintegration. The twenty years following his revelation that atomic nucleii are not indestructible saw first a relatively slow advance in physics and then rapid progress in the development of machines to accelerate charged particles and in understanding the reactions thus produced. Atom splitting became commonplace, fissioning of uranium-235 was observed and verified, and the magnitude of the energy released in the process became known. With regard to plutonium, the period culminated in the concept of radiative capture by Frisch and Meitner.
Work performed under the auspices of the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission.
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© 1974 Plenum Press, New York
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Cramer, E.M. (1974). Plutonium Metallography. In: McCall, J.L., Mueller, W.M. (eds) Metallographic Specimen Preparation. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-8708-8_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-8708-8_16
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