Wikipedia:Peer review/Nuclear fission/archive1

Nuclear fission

I overhauled Nuclear fission a while ago; It now appears to be rather stable and informative. I'd like to polish it up to FA status. Any suggestions? zowie 04:01, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A little bit more about other fissions in physiks would be good. Protons alpha-particles are possible particles for fission. U an Pu are not the only possible atomes to be target. Stone 18:56, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot -- that's a good point. I'll add something by tomorrow night! zowie 19:02, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm... quite a few things jump out at me - I think this still needs some work.

The layout doesn't strike me as the best - why all those other subsections under 'physical overview'? I think that all of the current subsections should become sections.

Also, '1.1 Spontaneous and induced fission; chain reactions ' is rather tedious for a subsection (or section) heading - is there any way this heading could be shortened without any meaning being lost?

In the third, fourth, and fifth paragraphs of 'physical overview', I (as a layman) start to get confused as to what exactly is meant. Clarifying language would be helpful. Come to think of it,it couldn't hurt elsewhere in the article - state even things that may seem obvious to you, since not everyone has the same background on the topic as you do.

The captions of the pictures seem very important, and thus should be more flushed out much more in the actual article; things like that should not include new material, and you shouldn't hesitate to put in new sections to add more info.

As it stands, the rationale behind the caption of the graph (the part leading up to the "giving rise to the nuclear waste problem" statement) seems very unclear - I don't understand it.

I get the feeling that this article is still lacking important facets - could a section on nuclear waste be included? It is mentioned several times, but is not given a section of its own. Are there any other subjects not discussed that are pertinent?

Under fission reactors, could anything more be added to the three types of reactors? I think that these bullet points should become subsections if there is enough to be said (and I'd be suprised if this was not the case).

Also, I remember reading about a way to fashion a nuclear power reactor with very little nuclear waste, and nearly 100% efficiency - I don't remember if this was from Scientific American, or Discover, or Pop Sci, but I could find it again. I think it should be mentioned if there is anything to this, since it claims to have the potential to reduce the nuclear waste that is mentioned in the article.

The history section needs help:

"The results of the bombardment of uranium by neutrons had proved interesting and puzzling." (italics mine) - this two sentence paragraph seems possibly misleading, and also needs expansion. What was the significance of Enrico Fermi's studies?

"...to discuss some abstract problems with Albert Einstein." Abstract problems with what? Heck, what was even meant by "abstract"? Clarify.

"(Four years later Bohr was to escape to Sweden from Nazi-occupied Denmark in a small boat, along with thousands of other Danish Jews, in large scale operation.)" Not relevant to nuclear fission - should be discussed in article on Bohr, but not here. Also, I'm not sure that the fact that Otto Robert Frisch and Lise Meitner were both refugees from Germany is important, either.

Come to think of it, that paragraph doesn't seem to contribute to the article at all in its current state...

What about before 1934, and after 1942? Was everything ever learned about nuclear fission learned in those eight years (except the Oklo thing...)???

Those were some problems I noticed with that section - I think the whole history section needs a rewrite for clarification. I don't think that I can do a good job of this - just whoever writes this should remember to keep a close, scrutinizing eye on what they write.

If you deal with these things, and you still want more help, feel very free to contact me on my talk page, and ask for more help. I would be more than glad to help. --Trevdna 04:55, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yow! That's awesome stuff! Thanks! This might take a little while to get through, but definitely worth it. zowie 05:49, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. --Trevdna 18:00, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The theory that the internal structure of the core is the cause of fissibility could be included. The cigar formed core the flat ones and the flat ones, where as the cigar formed are U and Pu. Also that some of the neutrons emmitted can be emitted upto some seconds later than the fission. This is the cause why you can built a reactor at all. If this would not be so the going critical would be so fast that no counteraction woulc be fast enough. Stone 11:57, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Hmmm... I'm not familiar with the cigar-shape theory of fissibility -- do you have a reference I could use to find it? As for delayed neutrons, do you think it is better to include them in nuclear fission or to leave them (like now) in nuclear reactor physics? The fission page seemed to be getting rather long, so I split out a large amount of material into the reactor-physics page, but that might not have been the perfect split. zowie 15:54, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I will look for something on the core shape. A short mentioning that not everything bursts apart and some neutrons come late would hurt nobody.Stone 21:47, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In the first paragraph, "Most nuclear fuels undergo spontaneous fission very slowly, gradually disintegrating over periods of eons." implies that the common method of natural decay is spontaneous fission, instead of an alpha - beta decay chain.

That was a quick one -- addressed. Thanks! zowie 20:08, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]