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Nuclear Technology
This blog tecnotrip is on technology. It describes about the meaning of technology, branches of technology and their related feilds
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| Nuclear Technology |
| 03.14.08 (3:40 am) [edit] |
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Nuclear technology is technology that includes the reactions of atomic nuclei. It has found applications from smoke detectors to nuclear reactors, and from gun sights to nuclear weapons. There is a great deal of public concern about its possible implications, and every application of nuclear technology is reviewed with care. In 1896, Henri Becquerel was investigating phosphorescence in uranium salts when he discovered a new phenomenon which came to be called radioactivity. He, Pierre Curie and Marie Curie began investigating the phenomenon. In the process they isolated the element radium, which is highly radioactive. They discovered that radioactive materials produce intense, penetrating rays of several distinct sorts, which they called alpha rays, beta rays and gamma rays. Some of these kinds of radiation could pass through ordinary matter, and all of them could cause damage in large amounts - all the early researchers received various radiation burns, much like sunburn, and thought little of it. The concept of radioactivity was seized upon by the manufacturers of quack medicine as had the discoveries of electricity and magnetism, earlier, and any number of patent medicines and treatments involving radioactivity were put forward. Gradually it came to be realized that the radiation produced by radioactive decay was ionizing radiation, and that quantities too small to burn presented a severe long-term hazard. Many of the scientists working on radioactivity died of cancer as a result of their exposure. Radioactive patent medicines mostly disappeared, but other applications of radioactive materials persisted, such as the use of radium salts to produce glowing dials on meters.
With the invention of atom the nature of radioactivity became clearer: some atomic nuclei are unstable, and they can decay, releasing energy in the form of gamma rays, high-energy photons and nuclear fragments alpha particles, a pair of protons and a pair of neutrons, and beta particles, high-energy electrons.
The period of World war 2nd have significant history of nuclear technology. Radioactivity is generally a slow and difficult process to control, and is unsuited to building a weapon. However, other nuclear reactions are possible. In particular, a sufficiently unstable nucleus can undergo nuclear fission, breaking into two smaller nuclei and releasing energy and some fast neutrons. This neutron could, if captured by another nucleus, cause that nucleus to undergo fission as well. The process could then continue in a nuclear chain reaction. Such a chain reaction could release a vast amount of energy in a short amount of time. Atom bomb was used for first time during world war 2nd.
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