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To: AmericaUnited

the media won't give it two seconds...


18 posted on 06/18/2006 7:29:35 PM PDT by God luvs America (When the silent majority speaks the earth trembles!)
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To: God luvs America
"...the media won't give it two seconds..."

As well they shouldn't. "Jveritas" is correct that the more important tidbit in the article is the "tantalum coated graphite". Tantalum is a very difficult material to work with, yet highly corrosion resistant. Graphite, OTOH is relatively cheap, abundant, and easy to work with. Coating graphite with tantalum potentially offers a short-cut route to piping for handling corrosive gas.

The "neutron generator" is simply an isotopic neutron source that uses the high-energy alpha particles emitted by many isotopes (including naturally occuring ones) to slam into a beryllium "target". When such a high-energy collision occurs, you get (as I recall) the formation of Lithium nuclei, and the emission of a free neutron, which can then be used for many experimental purposes. Commerical sources of this type typically use either Americium or Plutonium (note--NOT the fissionable plutonium isotope), as they put out a higher alpha particle flux.

27 posted on 06/18/2006 7:40:22 PM PDT by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel-NRA)
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