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Implanting a Discipline: The Academic Trajectory of Nuclear Engineering in the USA and UK

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Abstract

The nuclear engineer emerged as a new form of recognised technical professional between 1940 and the early 1960s as nuclear fission, the chain reaction and their applications were explored. The institutionalization of nuclear engineering—channelled into new national laboratories and corporate design offices during the decade after the war, and hurried into academic venues thereafter—proved unusually dependent on government definition and support. This paper contrasts the distinct histories of the new discipline in the USA and UK (and, more briefly, Canada). In the segregated and influential environments of institutional laboratories and factories, historical actors such as physicist Walter Zinn in the USA and industrial chemist Christopher Hinton in the UK proved influential in shaping the roles and perceptions of nuclear specialists. More broadly, I argue that the State-managed implantation of the new subject within further and higher education curricula was shaped strongly by distinct political and economic contexts in which secrecy, postwar prestige and differing industrial cultures were decisive factors.

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Notes

  1. By ‘discipline’ I mean the intellectual foundations, specialized skills, educational institutionalization and academic allegiances supporting a self-recognised coherent body of knowledge. I distinguish this from the aspects of ‘occupation’—the pursuit of productive activity—and ‘profession’—the community interactions and recognised status attaching to disciplinary and occupational expertise. This distinction follows the approach of Abbott (1988) and of Divall and Johnston (2000).

  2. Indeed, institutions highlighted this new terrain. The UK Atomic Energy Authority vaunted its role to ‘design, build and operate new types of reactor’ (Jay 1956, p. v). Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd identified its business as ‘creation of atomic energy’ [Atomic Research Workers Union, No. 24291, Applicant—and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, Respondent. LAC RG145 Vol 114 File 766:336:52].

  3. The Nagasaki bomb was based on plutonium generated in nuclear reactors designed at the ‘Metallurgical Laboratory’ (‘Met Lab’) of the University of Chicago. By contrast, the Hiroshima uranium bomb relied on the separation of the isotope U-235 from the almost indistinguishable U-238 in uranium-rich ores, for which processes based on gaseous diffusion, electromagnetic separation and centrifuges were developed at Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

  4. An alternate etymology credits wartime chemical engineers, designers of chemical ‘reactors’, with making an analogy between chemical and nuclear production. The competing origins are significant, as they attribute authority over the new domain to different technical specialists.

  5. Damage to early reactors by thermal run-away was not rare, although the later Three Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986) events gained greater public attention. Earlier incidents from which engineering experience was gleaned included those at NRX, the first large Canadian reactor (1952), Windscale (1957) in Britain, the Santa Susana Field Laboratory near Los Angeles (1959) and the SL-1 reactor in Idaho (1961).

  6. This separation was dictated early. Los Alamos and Aldermaston focused on bomb design in the USA and UK, respectively; Canada had no such site. Argonne and Oak Ridge (USA), Harwell (UK) and Chalk River (Canada) focused on reactor development.

  7. Although differently configured in the USA, UK and Canada, labour representation for nuclear workers was shaped by secrecy. Until the early 1950s, collective representation was discouraged by the AEC on the grounds of national security, but the Commission did not actively resist unionisation efforts by the American Federation of Labour and later the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers’ Union (1955). In Canada, without an overt military dimension to protect, new unions such as the Atomic Research Workers’ Union (1952) emerged earlier to represent Chalk River workers, but promiscuously included those linked only by the occupational environment of atomic energy. In the UK, by contrast, workers were accommodated by existing unions; a short-lived Atomic Workers union disappeared in part owing to its lack of recognition by the UKAEA, which remained vigilant in discouraging left-wing sympathies [National Union of Atomic Workers 1958-63. NA FS 27/406]. Such State pressures are also discernable in the demise of the Atomic Scientists’ Association in 1959 after government spokesmen criticised its report on the medical effects of fallout from the British H-bomb [The Atomic Scientists Association Ltd: policy and associated correspondence 1950–1951: 1954–1959. NA AB 27/6; Atomic Scientists Association's general correspondence 1946–1951. NA AB 16/52].

  8. University of Illinois archives, records of the Argonne Universities Association, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA (henceforth UI) box 46.

  9. Atomic Energy Commission (1953) Oak Ridge Operations Information Manual, Budget and Reports Division [accessed via http://www.osti.gov/opennet/detail.jsp?osti_id=16111668].

  10. Sapirie, S. R., letter to L., D. C., 1 Sep 1959. Department of Energy CD 59-5-20/FORM 189 [http://www.osti.gov/opennet/detail.jsp?osti_id=16289444].

  11. Brown, C. L. personal notebook, Hanford Technology Course, 15 Oct 1948–8 Oct 1953. Department of Energy Declassified Document Retrieval System: Hanford Engineering Works archive (online database, henceforth DOE DDRS, accessed via http://www5.hanford.gov/ddrs) D198027813; DOE DDRS, Fullmer, G. C. personal notebook, Pile Technology Course, 26 Jan 1950–30 Sep 1960. DOE DDRS D198027813.

  12. Board of Governors' Minutes, Argonne National Laboratory, 2 May 1950. UI box 44.

  13. Boyce, J. C. memo to Council of Participating Institutions, 26 Jan 1951. UI box 134.

  14. The term technologist, rising in usage during the 1950s, reflects the new occupation promoted in the environment of government laboratories, in which scientists and engineers associated more closely than did their pre-war counterparts.

  15. In later years, the UKAEA moved from civil service grading to a simpler salary structure, but largely retained the post-war technical categories with isolated additions such as Computing and Electronic, but not Nuclear, Engineer.

  16. Cockcroft, John. memo to unlisted recipients. 22 Nov 1954. NA AB 19/84.

  17. The INucE never attained the professional cachet of the ‘big four’ engineering institutions, but offered a commercial periodical and conference venues to bring nuclear workers together.

  18. AECL. The university graduate and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, 1959. Library and Archives Canada (henceforth LAC) MG30 B59 Vol 8.

  19. Subsequent periods, involving consolidation of nuclear power programs c1963–1985 and a subsequent retrenchment of the field following anti-nuclear movements and dramatic failures such as Chernobyl, are beyond the scope of this paper.

  20. Operations Coordinating Board. A program to exploit the A-bank proposals in the President's UN speech of December 8, 1953. 4 Feb 1954. Eisenhower Presidential Library, accessed via http://www.eisenhower.utexas.edu/dl/Atoms_For_Peace/Binder11.pdf.

  21. Argonne National Laboratory. Minutes. Inter-institution committee for considering a cooperative effort for advanced nuclear engineering education. 20 Dec 1955. UI box 100.

  22. Brookhaven National Laboratory. Brookhaven 1960–1982 and its Associated Universities. UI box 35.

  23. Board of Education and successors: Technical Branch and Further Education Branch: Registered Files (T Series). NA ED 46/1062.

  24. Early examples included Borough Polytechnic in London, Acton Technical College, Birkenhead Technical College, Battersea Polytechnic, Leeds College of Technology and the North West Kent College of Technology.

  25. It included background on reactor theory; engineering (temperature distributions in reactors, thermal stresses and kinetic behaviour of reactors); chemical engineering and metallurgy (manufacturing moderators and fuel elements, and extracting bred fissile material from them); and, more advanced topics such as electromagnetic pumps for liquid metal coolants and various types of power generating reactors.

  26. Hinton, Christopher, letter to Harold Hartley. 4 Aug 1954. NA AB 19/84.

  27. Hinton, Christopher, letters to J. M. Kay. 4 Jan 1955 and 22 Dec 1954. NA AB 19/84.

  28. The departments of Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry, Metallurgy and Mechanical Engineering offered some 12–50 h each of lecture-based courses to undergraduate students [letters, Nuclear Science Instruction—UGC enquiry 1957 (File No. 571), 1957. Imperial College Archives, London, UK (henceforth IC) GB 0098 KNP/3/1].

  29. Hinton, Christopher, letter to T. P. Creed. 23 Nov 1955. NA AB 19/84.

  30. Hinton, Christopher, letters to O. A. Saunders. 5 and 9 Jan 1956. NA AB 7/40.

  31. Kay, John M. Imperial College, 4 Jan 1957. NA AB 19/84.

  32. University: nuclear engineering 1954–1957 Train/1. NA AB 19/84. King's College, Newcastle, predicting the rise of marine applications, discussed a nuclear engineering course oriented towards the naval industry [Advisory Panel in Chemical Engineering. Minutes, 20 Feb 1957. King’s College Newcastle archives]. The University of Glasgow instituted a more general course in 1956 shared between the Natural Philosophy (i.e. Physics) and Engineering departments (news item 1956c). Birmingham University began a one-year M.Sc. course in reactor physics and technology in its Physics Department in 1956 and, a year later, Nottingham University offered familiarization courses in nuclear engineering for graduate level students, with Queen Mary College, London, offering a nuclear engineering option in its BSc in Electrical Engineering. Cambridge offered a course on reactor theory and in 1958 Imperial College began graduate courses in Nuclear Power (in the Department of Mechanical Engineering) and Nuclear Technology (in the Department of Chemical Engineering).

  33. Argonne National Laboratory. Minutes, Inter-institution committee for considering a cooperative effort for advanced nuclear engineering education. 20 Dec 1955. UI box 100.

  34. Longacre, Andrew. ‘Proposal for a cooperative facility for education in nuclear engineering’, Nov 1955. UI Box 100.

  35. Ibid.

  36. The University of Arizona, for example, began a programme in 1959 under Lynn Weaver (b 1930). Weaver had not worked on the Manhattan project or national laboratories but, with two degrees in electrical engineering under his belt, gained experience from 1953 on a Convair Corporation programme to design a nuclear-powered bomber, where he began to study reactor control problems. Weaver took one course from a graduate of ORSORT, and absorbed more from the handful of texts then becoming available. Most of his half-dozen teaching staff had worked at an industrial firm, General Atomics, contracted to produce a reactor design for space flight applications [Weaver, Lynn. Interview with Sean F. Johnston. 3 Mar 2007].

  37. Roberson, John H., letter to Warren F. Stubbins. 28 Sep 1959. UI box 83.

  38. Iowa State University. Dept of Nuclear Engineering advertisement 27 Sep 1960. UI box 83.

  39. Perry, C. C. memo. Nuclear engineering at Wayne State University. 6 Apr 1959. UI box 22.

  40. Newman, M. K., letter to J. H. Roberson. 17 Feb 1960. UI box 85.

  41. See note 39.

  42. Roberson, John H., letter to E. L. Multhaup. 11 Apr 1960. UI box 83.

  43. American Nuclear Society 1960. ASEE Report on objective criteria in nuclear engineering education. Queens University Archives, Kingston, Canada, Sargent fonds, Series III Box 4.

  44. Ibid.

  45. Extending the studies of industrial sociologist Nelson N. Foote on the American car industry, Vollmer and Mills argued that nuclear technology showed evidence of ‘rudimentary professionalization of labour’, notably theoretical formulations supporting specialised techniques, collegial association of its experts, growing recognition by a wider community, and an awareness of public health and safety as a criterion of professional responsibility.

  46. The Canadian implementation was along similar disciplinary lines to its American counterpart, but chronically limited by small student numbers and relatively few occupational sites.

  47. The experiences of the period 1940-c1990, dubbed by nuclear engineer Alvin Weinberg ‘the first nuclear era’, may offer lessons for rapidly mounted government initiatives to rebuild nuclear engineering expertise inspired by efforts to limit climate change.

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Acknowledgements

The funding of this work by Economic and Social Research Council grant RES-000-22-2171 is gratefully acknowledged. The helpful comments of colleagues and two anonymous referees of Minerva are also much appreciated.

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    Sean F. Johnston

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Johnston, S.F. Implanting a Discipline: The Academic Trajectory of Nuclear Engineering in the USA and UK. Minerva 47, 51–73 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-009-9114-6

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