The American Scene; Nuclear Science

night fair, low in the 20s. Tomorrow, partly cloudy and warmer, high around 50, light 28 degrees. This is WMACU and WMACU FM, NBC and Chicago featuring Jim Conway every weekday afternoon. It's 7 o 'clock. The American Scene, a series of pre -recorded programs, providing a closer look at those things which form our contemporary society. Produced by the Illinois Institute of Technology in cooperation with WMACU, the discussion today will consider job horizons in nuclear science. Now here's our host, Don Anderson. Good morning and welcome to the American Scene. My name is Don Anderson. The field of nuclear science is a relative infant. Although centuries of thought and study and research and investigation have been devoted to the world of the atom, it was not until

1932 that the neutron was discovered and it was not until 1942 that a controlled self -sustaining nuclear chain reaction was achieved. Since that time, nuclear energy has grown to be one of the most potent forces in the American and indeed world scene. To many of us, the field of nuclear science is almost beyond comprehension. Our traditional concepts of time and space have little meaning. One example might help to indicate the complexities of the field. A single drop of water contains something like 6 ,000 billion atoms of oxygen and hydrogen. Now this is a quantity so vast that if that drop of water were the size of the earth, the atoms it contained would still be smaller than oranges. If we were to study the nucleus of one oxygen atom, we would be studying something which occupied one trillions of the volume of the entire atom. To be able to study and measure and explore in this world of minute dimensions

is truly an unparalleled achievement. And yet we have barely begun to realize the first potentials of this area of knowledge. The outlook for careers in the broad field of nuclear science and engineering is exceptionally bright. It has been characterized as one of the most rapidly expanding occupations with abundant employment opportunities. The demand is for highly trained professionals with curiosity, intelligence, and a willingness to work hard despite frustratingly difficult scientific problems. Not everyone of course must have the genius qualities of a Fermi or Einstein. There are opportunities for graduates with bachelor's degrees and master's degrees. But as in so many fields where specialized knowledge is so important, the more education, the better. To help us begin to understand this amazing field and perhaps give some insight into the job horizon in nuclear science. I'm pleased to welcome this morning, Mr. Charles W. Terrell, a System Director of Physics Research at the IIT Research Institute, and Dr. William E. Lloyd, Manager of Nuclear

and Radiation Physics, also at the IIT Research Institute. And welcome this morning, gentlemen, thank you for coming. And I wonder if we might begin, Bill, perhaps you might answer this. Can we expect a very significant impact on society from nuclear science and engineering? Well, Dan, I think that we are already experiencing such an impact. I think that it will grow to a considerable extent in the years to come. The places where it is most felt, where we're most aware of it, I think will change as the years go by. Definitely, I think there will be such an impact. Chuck, what would you say to that? Well, I would certainly agree, Dan. If one looks back at the sociological history, you find that from the beginning, the intellectual activities of man was centered in the

clergy for a long period of time, as the rights of man became to be important items to us. The law group came to prominence and intellectual activity began to shift to them. This certainly created a, I think it's fair to say, a social upheaval. This, of course, as we recall, was followed by the introduction of science and technology for the first time to the common man, the industrial revolution, which there's no question of still going on today, within the specific science and technology that we're interested in here this morning, that is nuclear science. One might say that perhaps about 50 years ago it had a modest beginning, and that it is very much with us today and undoubtedly will continue. I think there's little doubt. I think, at least in my opinion, that we can expect similar changes. I'm sure not

quite as dramatic as perhaps the industrial revolution wise, but that it will affect our lives and does today. I think there's little doubt. Well, it seems to me that the changes that might come about, at least to me, would seem to be as dramatic as the industrial revolution has had. And I've kind of painted this as a rather mysterious area for weep poor layman who knows a little about the nuclear field. Maybe we can get a little bit specific about some of the areas of nuclear science and engineering and find out some particular areas where it's going to have an impact. How has the field broken down? What are some of the categories within this broad field of nuclear science, nuclear physics? Well, it's hard to nail down specific categories and still cover everything. Let me at least make a start at it. I would say that we can talk about two rather important categories today. And we must appreciate that nuclear science, like many other aspects of science and engineering, has, in a sense, its fad

or its area of importance and prominence at any given time. These things are somewhat transitory in that they change as other ideas come to bear and so on. But if I were to pick two categories, I would say that high energy nuclear physics is certainly a key category today that many scientists are interested in. As you know, the earth is bombarded by a whole spectrum of particles with energies from very low to very high. And these have always been with us since the early days. Scientists have sent balloons up to the top of the atmosphere to attempt by various means to measure these particles to try to learn something about their galactic or intergalactic origins. Today we're in a position where we are slowly evolving and developing the large so -called accelerators, which are allowing us in a laboratory under a more

controlled situation to produce similar particles and over a similar energy spectrum. And with these high energy particles of different kinds, we can of course bombard the structure of matter and in observing the decomposition of the nucleus of the atom, for instance, we can now begin to learn something about its basic constituents. The second category that I would pick would be that of nuclear power. Here it breaks down into two, I think, general categories, namely the generation of electricity, electric power, binuclear energy. And then of course, and this, by the way, is something that most of the people are familiar with. It's something that we can see on the American landscape, the rise of the nuclear power plants and so on. In addition to that, the other category under nuclear energy application or nuclear power, I would say is specifically the category of propulsion, which of course we have not accomplished yet, but which

a very extensive research program is underway. And I feel relatively safe in predicting that probably before the end of this present decade, then it's the 60s, that we will see a nuclear powered vehicle. I'm speaking of course specifically here for space applications at a spacecraft. I think the need for this has been very definitely established. The chemical propulsion systems simply do not have, at least at the moment, appear to have the ultimate capability that the nuclear energy applications have. With this propulsion system, that which lifts the rocket from the earth or is this a propulsion power, or once we get out into the atmosphere of bill, could be either one, generally speaking, however, it's thought of as being the power source which drives a craft after it's left the earth. Tell me a little bit more about this

field of high energy physics. This is a particular grouping of nuclear eye that you're trying to study, or a particular spectrum of energy, or what is it? I think it's pretty close to the latter done. When you are asked to divide nuclear physics into categories, there are so many ways to do it. That almost any one of them is relatively arbitrary. If you talk about high and low energy, you're simply dividing it according to the energy of the particles that you are studying. So that high energy physics, high energy nuclear physics, then studies particles which have the high energies predominantly, which are characteristic as Chuck mentioned, particles coming from extra terrestrial space. With the field of low energy physics be applicable, are we only interested in those things which give us the highest energy? No, on the contrary, low energy nuclear physics is at least as interesting and perhaps even

more bountiful in its applications than high energy, nuclear physics. Perhaps this is an accident of history since we worked on it. For example, low energy nuclear physics encompasses all of the nuclear power that Chuck was talking about. Propulsion. When we talk about propulsion, can we talk about land craft, having nuclear propulsion systems as well, or sea craft? Of course, we do have sea craft. Yes, I was just going to mention that. The Polaris submarine, of course, is probably one of the finest examples that we can point to today as an application of propulsion. It has been extremely successful. As you can well imagine, people have been interested, of course, in applying nuclear energy to all forms of propulsion. Obvious things are land vehicles and of course aircraft.

Here, we have to bring in now one other aspect of nuclear science and one area that is beginning to play a very important role, and that is namely economics. This is something that I think many of us for a long time did not appreciate the relative importance of. For example, there is technically, no real reason why we can't have, for example, an atomic -powered locomotive. I hesitate to predict at the moment whether it would be a little smaller, a little bit larger. My guess is probably larger than some of the conventional diesels that we have today. But here, you must look at it from an economic point of view. It simply does not appear to make any sense economically to build even though I feel certain that we could, a nuclear -powered locomotive. Now, when you move into the realm of aircraft, the argument gets vastly more complicated, but is also an economic argument. I've already mentioned the applications to propulsion in

spacecraft, and I think these are something that we will see very, very soon. The economic argument, I think, when you come to spacecraft begins to be smeared out by the fact that the military has had quite an interest in the subject, and while they are certainly interested in economics, there are other considerations of strategy and planning that tend to over balance, or at least as I say, to smear out. Well, what about our traditional conventional sources of energy? Some people say that we're going to run out of natural gas, oil, wood, eventually that atomic power or nuclear power is going to have to be the source of energy for the future. Is this an accurate assessment or isn't it? Well done. It's been fashionable in the late years to try to predict how many people we're going to have and how we're going to increase the per capita consumption of power and how long our resources will hold out and what the efficiency with which we'll use them is going to be and how many new resources we'll find. I think in general, there is

agreement that in some number of decades, there will be a very definite and real concern for our energy resources, and it's towards this possibility or likelihood that many of our nuclear energy programs are being directed. Well, I'm asking questions here that are really impossible to answer, but combining the economic factor and the possible shortage of conventional fuels, would it be possible for a city in the future to be heated, provided electricity, given its necessary sources of energy from a nuclear power plant, a central power plant, for instance, good Chicago, have a nuclear power plant that would operate all of the necessary equipment in Chicago. Well, the answer to this, I think, has to be somewhat in the realm of

speculation. I think that the answer to that could be yes. After all, we do have the first part of your comment. That is, the generation of electric power is a definite reality today. Bill, I don't remember how many reactor plants are actually operating, but it must be on the order of a dozen or so, isn't it? That's an element already on power. As you know, the big Dresden plant just downstate here in Illinois, of course, is supplying power to the general Chicago area. So that part of your point is already a reality. You mentioned also heating. The Atomic Energy Commission has been very interested in specifically the applications of process heat to industry, and in specific industries, the generation of certain types of heat by a nuclear power, and there are people that are taking very serious looks at these today. They appear to be economically competitive under a certain set of defined conditions. In other cases, they appear not to be competitive today, and I think this is where the point that Bill made comes

in, that as we get further and further down the line, I think we're going to have to look harder and harder that is with more reality at the particular areas in which we might consider applying nuclear power, and I think, of course, obviously, that the areas in which we can find applications for this will certainly increase. I don't think there's any doubt about that. Chuck, wouldn't you say that in connection with the heating of homes and factories and so on, that the problem is largely a more conventional problem of distributing the energy source, the heat from a central plant to all these places where you might use it, that it's very difficult to get any kind of an economically sound system small enough to use locally, that to make any sense at all you must have a fairly large source, and this then raises the distribution question. Well, the only alternative to that that I could think of would be to devise a central system in the sense of central within the home. If you can visualize each home with its little package,

I think this might be part of the answer to that. I think we can also say here, Don, that for many reasons, not only economic, does not seem to be on the immediate horizon. This is not to say that 15, 20, 25 years from now, it may not be a practical situation. It does not appear to be today, however. We've been talking about pretty exotic, futuristic things here. Nuclear science is being used in very directly in certain areas of our society right now, particularly the health field, isn't it? Yes, indeed. Radioisotopes are being used as tracers, for example, in many areas of research and medicine, many of our universities, programs being carried on, traced the function of almost every organ in the body one way or another. Simply by tagging an element and watching it as the body chemistry and the physiological processes take place. I was reading just the other day of something that I thought was fairly interesting.

Radioisotope emitting gamma rays was administered to a mouse, and then they were able to take a whole body film exposure and see how it was distributed internally, including where it was concentrated in the kidney, which was actually the purpose of this particular element. One of the, I think, more exciting areas of applications of nuclear energy to the field of medicine is specifically in a certain narrow field in neurosurgery, out at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, which is one of the Atomic Energy Commission's laboratories on Long Island. The research group there is bringing a very well -defined, very well -collimated beam of neutrons, specifically to a selected area of the brain, and which a tumor has grown. And these tumors are located in areas in which surgery, normal

surgery, is simply not possible. And there are a rather substantial number of people who are walking around today alive and presumably cured as a result of this technique, a neutron surgery, if you wish. And if a time permitted we could explore many other somewhat specific applications, but yet I think rather indicative of the tremendous potential that the whole field of nuclear science and technology has to offer, and I think sure Bill would agree that the things we're doing today are just the very first steps, the very beginning. I would even hesitate to predict what 10, 8, 5 years, which is a very, all of it, short time. Well, this brings up two areas that I'd like to get into. First of all, well, one of them is that I'd like to talk about first as a safety factor, and then I'd like to get to this interdisciplinary approach that we've indicated through the relationship to medicine, particularly. But let's get back to the safety factor for a minute.

We're talking about the use of nuclear energy close to people living in a city, providing power, perhaps, in a vehicle that's driving them around, as well as in terms of the scientists themselves working with it. Now, what is the safety factor today? Is there, at one time there was a fear that anybody who worked on such a project would be in great danger? Well, I always liked to tell my story about when the reactor started up down at IT Research Institute some seven and a half years ago, my office happened to be located about oh, roughly 20 or 25 feet from the reactor. And I maintained that office for some three or three and a half years, and received, of course, no more radiation sitting in that rather close proximity to the reactor, which was operating every day, then I would have if I'd have been standing on in the front yard. So even in the early days, the

safety factor was greater than most people recognized. It is quite great. I think one of the points that needs to be reiterated is that the nuclear industry in general has been one of the most careful industries from the standpoint of safety of any that's ever been developed because the potential for a difficulty was recognized at an early stage. There has been very great effort continually to maintain the very high standards of safety. I would not like to be held accountable for some of the statistics, but I think if you go into the record, you will find that the nuclear industry has an astonishingly low accident rate, and as a matter of fact, that accident rate, which is astonishingly low, covers all forms of accidents. If you then go strictly to accidents involving nuclear energy proper or radiation accidents, there are a

handful in the entire history. Well, let's get on into the interdisciplinary approach that we touched on briefly beforehand, which gets us into the whole area of what kind of specialists are needed today and in the future, in this field of nuclear science. Do we have such things as a nuclear physicist, and if we do, is he going to be needed in the future? Are we going to need people who are experts in related fields? Don, the number of answers that one could give to that question are perhaps as numerous as the number of people that you might ask the question. However, I'm perfectly willing to join the group. If I may interpret your question for just a moment in a little bit more general sense, your question relates specifically to the kinds of education that our young people, high school level, considering going on in college and our undergraduate college people who are looking

for a particular area of endeavor to devote their professional careers. I think that, well, I'll put it to you this way, if I could start all over again, one of the things that I would want to do would be to begin my formal education, let's say, at the college level, on a little bit broader base. And by broader, I mean not only a broader scientific and technology base, but a broader, just playing good old -fashioned education base. Now, why do I say that? And why do I feel that way? Well, interestingly enough, scientists are people who have to live and reside in a community just as all of the other members of the society must do. And as such, they face precisely the same problems. And here, I think that because the way the technology has advanced, the rate, as we talked earlier, the enormous progress that has been made, it's very difficult for specialists in a given field to simply keep

up with the important steps that are taking place in their own perhaps narrow discipline. Facing that problem, well, you might say, well, how can you propose then to even broaden the base of education? Well, here, of course, I have to, in a sense, back off, I can't define the perfect curriculum that I would propose. Many people in this country, some of the finest educators that we have are worrying about this problem, because they see the need coming back from the professional people out in the field, and the sense that I am here trying to point out some of the deficiencies that I've observed over the course of my professional career. I think we must find a way to broadly educate our people, and at the same time, of course, we must properly train them and educate them in a specific discipline in which they intend to be employed. I think that's a very good point, Chuck. Scientists, nuclear scientists in particular, not only

must be able to understand the concepts that are involved with his work, not only must understand and be able to carry out research, for example. He also must be able to appreciate how it relates to society, at least to some degree, and he must be able to communicate his results, either internally to his fellow scientists or externally to others. Do we have time to educate people this broadly, and at the same time give them a specialized knowledge that they desperately need? Well, Donna, I think the answer to that is we have to take the time. Now, we can't, I'm not suggesting that we simply expand the number of years that we require our young people to be in college. There's a very large segment of the education community and the professional community, which feels they spend too many years in formal training anyway. Perhaps the efficiency of the education may be part of the answer, and please don't ask me to define that in any detail. It's a very tough question. There's no doubt about that. Well, I'd like

to simply inject the remark that attitude plays a fairly substantial role in the kind of thing that I'm talking about. On the part of the student? Yes, on the part of the student, who in some cases, and perhaps to a lesser degree, generally among science and engineering students, seems to feel that if he has firm grasp of the mathematics and the physics or the engineering questions of communication and phraseology, grammar, and this sort of thing are not quite so important, and he tends to regard them as unimportant. I think if he appreciates an early stage in high school, these are things that are necessary to enable him to understand what other scientists are doing, and to tell them what he is doing, effectively and efficiently, and without error. I think then the question of being able to communicate and having this broader base to appreciate what he's doing

will come along very nicely since, in fact, in high school he already does get a fairly good course, as a matter of resistance perhaps. In addition to that, we're also developing a whole breed of people who are specialists in communicating, who are the translators, not only between disciplines of science but between science and the public as well. Well, it sounds as though this really is an amazing feel that almost anybody who has an interest in science or engineering or things related to the future should seriously consider getting into this as a career. I think so, Dan. It's a very, very broad field of nuclear energy and it's expanding all the time. There are so many related areas of professional activity that come into the broad area that you mean when you say nuclear energy. It just makes you remarks about it being almost unlimited and still growing quite appropriate. It's really hard to define the specific careers, but it certainly is something that people should seriously look into because it does

give us the view of the future. And I want to thank you very much for coming this morning, gentlemen, Mr. Terro and Dr. Lowey and with the pleasure of a very interesting discussion. And this is Don Anderson saying that morning for the American scene. This has been the American scene. Today's discussion, job horizons and nuclear science. Had his guest, Mr. Charles W. Terro, Assistant Director of Physics at IIT, IIT, IIT, host on the series is Don Anderson, Director of Public Service Broadcasting at Illinois Institute of Technology. The American scene is pre -recorded and is produced by the Illinois Institute of Technology in cooperation with WMAQ. Next week's topic will be job horizons in gas technology, and we'll be discussed by Dr. Richard Fukasek and Mr. Jack Hobler as we continue our investigation

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