Recent advances in neutron physics

FEB 01, 1977

Along with new techniques, the last decade has seen new studies—such as ultracold neutrons and “neutron bottles,” resonance behavior and doorway states, subthreshold fission, doubly radiative capture and neutron stars.

DOI: 10.1063/1.3037411

Herman Feshbach

Eric Sheldon

“At twilight on the sixth day of Creation, so say the Hebrew commentators to the Old Testament, God made for man a number of tools that give him also the gift of creation. If the commentators were alive today, they would write God made the neutron.” In these dramatic words the late mathematician and science historian Jacob Bronowski conveyed the importance of the neutron to modern man. Indeed, nuclear physics as we know it may be said to owe its origins to the 1932 discovery of the neutron. We are coming increasingly to appreciate the enormous significance and variety that neutron physics displays throughout the entire realm of the physical sciences and beyond, into such developing areas as therapy, bioanalysis, materials research and astronomy. To survey in any comprehensive fashion the advances achieved over the past decade alone would carry us far beyond the scope of an article such as this. We therefore will touch only upon some of the salient features on which fresh light is being shed and discuss some of the fields in which neutron physics is being called upon to play a prominent part.

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More about the Authors

Herman Feshbach. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Eric Sheldon. University of Lowell, Lowell, Massachusetts.