Weinberg A.M., Wigner E.P. The physical theory of neutron chain reactors

The University of Chicago Press, Cambridge University Press, London, 1958, 809 pp.
Of all modern technologies, nuclear reactor technology is unique in having sprong IIp full blo,vn almost overnight: Only four years separate the date of the discovery of fission (1938) and the date of the first chain reaction (1942). The first moderately powered reactor (Oak Ridge Graphite Reactor) went critical late in 1943; the first really high-powered reactors started in 1944 at Hanford. Electricity was first produced from fission at the Experimental Breeder Reactor I in Idaho in 1951. Because the development has been so rapid, there has until recently been little time-and possibly little appreciation of the need-to develop a scholarly tradition in nuclear reactor technology. By a "scholarly tradition" we mean the sum of historical, technical, and pedagogical doctrines underlying the technology which are the common knowledge of all who are expert in the field and which represent the deepest probing toward, the highest approximation to, the truth. Unfortunately, in the special field of reactor physics all too often what is commonly known does not represent the highest approximation to the truth; and what is the most penetrating and nearest approximation to the truth is often not commonly known.
It is our purpose in this book to present a unified account of reactor theory which we hope will help further the scholarly tradition in the field of reactor pl1ysics. Naturally, the book is much influenced by the thinking on reactor theory of our wartime theoretical group at the Metallurgical Laboratory. In delaying publication of this material in book fonn for so many years, we have gained in two ways: we have been able to sharpen many of our own ideas on the subject and we have been able to add much from the independent thinking of reactor theorists throughout the world.The nuclear physics of chain reactors
Transport theory of neutrons
General reactor theory
Heterogeneous reactors
Indexes