HUGHES, D.J. "Radiative Capture Cross Sections for Fast Neutrons", in Physical Review, volume 70, numbers 1 & 2, July 1 & 15, 1946. Original wrappers. Very Good copy. pp 106-7. (Al Wattenberg's copy, with his "A.W." at top right corner of the front wrapper.) $250
PJE Peebles writes (in his “Discovery of the hot Big Bang: What happened in 1948” published in he European Physical Journal H, 2014, Vol. 39,Issue 2, pp. 205 - 223): “Kragh (1996) reports that Alpher attended a talk by...Hughes at a meeting of the American Physical Society (June 20-22 1946) on capture cross section measurements [and published as the paper offered above in the PR], which led him to Hughes' declassified document on measurements that used '1-MeV pile neutrons'... This is Alpher’s most important source of data on neutron capture cross sections..."
Peebles establishes eleven major papers in the history of the hot Big Bang, and the Alpher 1948 paper resulting from his long work and his exposure to the Hughes' data is the first of these eleven. (On those eleven papers Peebles states that "The idea that the universe is filled with the thermal radiation now termed the Cosmic Microwave Background was discussed in eleven publications in the year 1948. These papers offer a detailed example of the process of development of a new and now very productive line of research, and of the confusion that can attend new ideas...")
Kragh writes on the use of the Hughes data by Alpher that “...Alpher came to think of...their use, not in nuclear reactor design, but in the design of the universe. When Alpher studied the data he saw in them a key to understanding the cosmic distribution of the elements.” --Helge Kragh , Cosmology and Controversy: The Historical Development of Two Theories of the Two Theories, .p 112
Comments