History
Since 1951, fifty-two reactors have been built on the grounds of what was originally the Atomic Energy Commission’s National Reactor Testing Station, currently the location of Idaho National Laboratory. Constructed in 1967, the ATR is the second-oldest of three reactors still in operation at the site. Its primary function is to intensely bombard samples of materials and fuels with neutrons to simulate long-term exposure to high levels of radiation, as would be present in a commercial nuclear reactor. The ATR is one of only four test reactors in the world with this capability. The reactor also produces rare isotopes for use in medicine and industry.
Read more about this topic: Advanced Test Reactor
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.”
—Willa Cather (1876–1947)
“The greatest horrors in the history of mankind are not due to the ambition of the Napoleons or the vengeance of the Agamemnons, but to the doctrinaire philosophers. The theories of the sentimentalist Rousseau inspired the integrity of the passionless Robespierre. The cold-blooded calculations of Karl Marx led to the judicial and business-like operations of the Cheka.”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)