Talk:University of Massachusetts Lowell Radiation Laboratory

Secrecy?

Seems outdated. I've taken two tours there, once post-9/11. It would be nice to know when this ABC prime time special took place and if it's verifiable that "most" research reactors have a home page. The lack of a web site and a Wikipedia article that's not as good as other people hardly make its "secrecy" notable. Midnightdreary 14:01, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't see what's so outdated about it. The part about the switch to LEU covers the most recent change that happened to it, other than that I certainly haven't had time to update with details on current research that's going on there. The date of the ABC special was October 12, 2005[1]. I know that they give tours and that ABC is full of themselves, that's why I was ragging on them for saying that a "virtual tour" was available online for this reactor (and specifically this reactor), the truth is quite the opposite (not to say that a virtual tour isn't a good thing). Regarding the statement that other reactors have a website, give me a week and I will personally furnish a list of them, note the other articles for university reactors and what's there. Out of the university reactors of this scale (1 MW) this one clearly stands alone in that respect, and I did have trouble finding decent information about it. This one is also different in that it is used by an Applied Physics and other departments, notably lacking Nuclear Engineering. The secrecy section is noteworthy because the ABC report made a strong point of it. The job of an encyclopedia is to get the facts straight.

I'll put some stuff in there later about tours and the outreach to elementary school. I read about the outreach somewhere that I can't remember now, but haven't found anything referenceable regarding the tours, which is why it's not in there now. But please add whatever information you have, it needs it. theanphibian 21:08, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm still skeptical of calling it secretive. It's a poorly-funded state institution with a massively bad web page all-around - why should the reactor laboratory be any different? The university has so many labs and ongoing projects, I'd guess only a couple actually have web sites. And, the university officer that didn't know about it hardly seems credible; their office shares the same parking lot as the reactor and they do rounds daily. I'm guessing it was a security guard part-timer from one of the res. halls or something, not an actual officer, but that's speculative. I wish I'd seen the ABC special. Anyway, just making some personal points. I guess the article reads okay in that it says that ABC is the one making the allegation so I won't push the point. -Midnightdreary 22:15, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

After another look, I realized their source was a cop on the city PD, not the University's... which makes a huge difference. UML police outrank the city officers due to their affiliation with the state police, so I'm not sure why they'd go to them. Anyway, at this point I'm just shooting down ABC's sources, so... :) Midnightdreary 22:27, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm definitely not trying to call it secretive any more. And no, ABC is not a credible source, but it is a high profile source, which I think makes it notable even if we're just saying that they don't know what they're talking about (which I may rather enjoy doing, hehe). You have a good point about the city PD and if that information exists anywhere else on Wikipedia (or another credible source) I would like to see links going there.

Keep in mind the only reason I have that is because I was really starving for information on this reactor that would give some identifiable characteristic over the others. It's difficult because, obviously, it hasn't proved easy to find such information. theanphibian 23:18, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Ha, point taken! I'll keep my eyes open for more sources and info. -Midnightdreary 17:08, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

There is a site I found: http://www.uml.edu/radlab/index.htm, it has some info on the reactor but not that much. Someone else who knows more about the topic should probably fold this info in to the article.67.86.174.92 (talk) 23:26, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Merge?

Disagree I don't feel a merge is needed Gang14 (talk) 05:42, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I dunno... as neither article is particularly strong independently, I don't see what's so bad about merging them together. --Midnightdreary (talk) 14:22, 1 May 2008 (UTC)