Pre-Nuke School Studying

[Gamecock]

Read "The Rickover Effect"

Cheers,
GC

[Narmy Nuke]

I have to agree with the statements about NNPP.

For a critical reactor, K_eff=1.0000 NOT K_eff=1, as I tried to answer on a test.   

I know, I tried arguing the point that answering 1 mathematically implies 1.000000000000000......
Sometimes acceptance is best.  Resistance is futile.  Its kinda like the AA serenity prayer:

God, Grant me the Serenity
To accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
and Wisdom to know the difference.

It took me awhile to accept this at nuke school.  I thought I could think and understand my way thru an exam. 
Understanding is really important, but it won't get you thru school on its own.  Memorization is at least 30% of making it thru.  Remember...sometimes you have to play the game.  That will serve you well in boot camp and nuke school. 

Don't think too hard and don't sweat it. 
 

[Fermi2]

Read "The Rickover Effect"

Cheers,
GC

Take The Rickover Effect with a grain of salt. I read it, it's a pretty good book and IIRC it'sd written by Theordore Rockwell who is in fact a brilliant man. Virtually every type of shielding design you see in either the commercial or Naval world was conceived by Rockwell.

NOW Rockwell was on the Nuclear Safety Advisory Group at DTE. I met him twice and he's an unabashed Rickover supporter to the extent he believes the Admiral did no wrong in taking gifts and kick backs from EB for the 688 Class. He's also unwilling to admit there was a design for a better and less expensive class of SSN than the 688 that would have effectively met the Navies needs.

It's a great Cheerleader book on Rickover if you believe in mindless sycophany and parts of it are very good but as a biography it's not very critical. If you want a truer view you might want to read the books by Normal Polmar. Much of what Rockwell wrote was Anecdotal. Polmar wrote a much more critical book called Death Of The Thresher that manages to give a much better look at Rickover as it's more critical in nature. Rockwell by the way was a very fascinating man, brilliant thinker, but almost viewed himself as being an acolyte at the Rickover throne and a preserver of the early legacy vice an accurate biographer.

Mike

[Fermi2]

I have to agree with the statements about NNPP.

For a critical reactor, K_eff=1.0000 NOT K_eff=1, as I tried to answer on a test.   

I know, I tried arguing the point that answering 1 mathematically implies 1.000000000000000......
Sometimes acceptance is best.  Resistance is futile.  Its kinda like the AA serenity prayer:

God, Grant me the Serenity
To accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
and Wisdom to know the difference.

It took me awhile to accept this at nuke school.  I thought I could think and understand my way thru an exam. 
Understanding is really important, but it won't get you thru school on its own.  Memorization is at least 30% of making it thru.  Remember...sometimes you have to play the game.  That will serve you well in boot camp and nuke school. 

Don't think too hard and don't sweat it. 
 

No, technically 1.0000 is the only correct answer. 1 is not accurate enough.

Mike

[wlrun3@aol.com]

   ..."Less of a professional history and more a book of reminiscences, interspersed with numerous factual errors, is Theodore Rockwell's The Rickover Effect: How One Man Made a Difference (Annapolis, Md.:Naval Institure Press, 1992)."

   Bibliographic Note, Rickover, Father of the Nuclear Navy, Thomas B. Allen and Norman Polmar, Potomac's Military Profiles, 2007.

[wlrun3@aol.com]

   ...strongly recommend, for the original poster...

   ...Running Critical: The Silent War, Rickover, and General Dynamics, 1987, Patrick Tyler...

   ...followed by...

   ...Rickover: Father of the Nuclear Navy, 2007, Thomas B. Allen and Norman Polmar...

   ...given the reading skills of all Navy Nukes this would be a very informative and enjoyable few days of reading...

[Fermi2]

wlrun3,

I agree, both the books you mentioned are superior reads and give a much more accurate view of Rickover than Rockwell gave. Running Critical is an awesome read. IIRC this is the book that describes how Rickover put the brakes on a better reactor design than he was capable of putting out.

Mike

[wlrun3@aol.com]

wlrun3,

I agree, both the books you mentioned are superior reads and give a much more accurate view of Rickover than Rockwell gave. Running Critical is an awesome read. IIRC this is the book that describes how Rickover put the brakes on a better reactor design than he was capable of putting out.

Mike

   ..."On September 26, 1957, President Eisenhower became the first U.S. chief executive to go to sea in a nuclear submarine, as the Seawolf cruised off the New England coast.
       There were periodic problems with the plant-and some unusual phenomena. Sometimes, for example, the Seawold's hull would glow in the dark. The light was Cherenkov radiation, a bluish glow emitted by high-speed charged particles as they pass from one medium to another."

   Rickover, Father of the Nuclear Navy, 2007, Allen and Polmar

   I was very impressed with this 97 page book based on the much larger biography by the same authors. The photographs are priceless.

   

[JnukePA11]

I'm in a similar situation as HOOPA and have found this post to be tremendously helpful.  I was going to ask the exact question he had but after reading through I'm going to just brush over my calc, diffy q, and basic chemistry information and possibly play with special relativity to dust off the cobwebs. 

I'm going to take a look at the two books suggest earlier on this page as well.  Thanks for the information you have put my anxiety and mind at easy.

Thanks,
Justin

[deltarho]

Unless they've changed their basic methodology in Nuke School over the last 20 years, almost nothing that you learn from a textbook at this point will help you answer questions correctly once you get there.  Thinking that you understand something is your worse enemy.  You will learn the 4.0 Navy answer to each question.  There is no paraphrasing, no rewording, no expounding.  There is one correct answer to each question and any deviation from that answer will result in points off.  Now this is a hard concept to grasp initially for freethinking improvisers [like myself], since you think that there is always a better way to express a more thorough understanding, but in the end, deeper understanding is its own reward.  The Navy answer is constant, immovable, unchanging. 

This is why many a question begins with:  "Briefly describe in detail..."