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:
“If you look at history you’ll find that no state has been so plagued by its rulers as when power has fallen into the hands of some dabbler in philosophy or literary addict.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
“It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man’s judgement.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
“There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)