Opening Remarks
V. L A W R E N C E PARSEGIAN
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York
I am happy to welcome you on behalf of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the Northeastern N ew York Section of the American Nuclear Society. I hope that while you are here you wil l learn some- thing about us, R P I, and the Section, in addition to enjoying t he technical discussions. I suspect that most of you do not realize that RPI is the oldest continuing engineering institution of this country.
T r o y, incidentally, also boasts the first school for girls in the country, the E m ma Willar d School. T he Institute has an undergraduate enrollment of nearly 3000 and is t he largest private undergraduate engineering school i n the country in the n u m b er that we graduate.
T he graduate enrollment is about 400 full-tim e day students, wit h another 300 or 400 evening s t u d e n t s; our Hartford Graduate Center has another 600 graduate students in that Connecticut area.
W h en you visit t he Nuclear Engineering and Science Center, you wil l note that there is provision for a wide range of activities revolving around the linear accelerator. I n addition to neutron physics and reactor physics, we are interested i n a broad range of research related to radiation effects, nuclear technology, solid state work, chemistry, and particularly materials research. You wil l note that the facility includes a " h ot cell" so that a sizeable program in analysis of radioactive materials wil l be possible. I expect that t he scientists concerned wit h cross-section measurements and reactor physics wil l also make full use of this additional facility. T he fact that the linear accelerator permits intense b ut very short radiation pulses, down to t he order of 10~7 sec or less, opens up n ew possibilities for exploring t he kinetics of radiation effects and of chemical reactions.
For example, this pulse time becomes comparable to the lifetime of free radicals; one may therefore explore t he effects of radiation wit h time of irradiation as a parameter, going down to t he lifetime of the events that are involved.
T he subcritical assembly which we have on the campus is open to visitors during this meeting, and may be of particular interest to
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those of you who have teaching responsibilities. Professor Valente can best provide information about this equipment and its use.
Let me say again that we are delighted to extend to you the hospitality of this campus, andrl do hope your stay here wil l be a pleasant one.
