Nuclear Physicist Overview

Would you like to be involved in making India's atom bombs? Or how about creating a power plant that does not need to be refueled for 15 years? Or maybe you'd like to come up with a 100 per cent effective treatment for cancer? As a nuclear physicist you can do these and much more. 

 

Nuclear physicists study the smallest particles known to man - atoms and their component sub atomic particles. You will be carrying out research to find out more about them. This could mean small laboratory experiments or colliding single atoms in giant accelerators tens of miles in diameter. If you think you are going to be cooped in a small lab, think again. As a Nuclear Physicist, your work may even take you on orbiting space stations to study effects of lack of gravity on atoms.

 

This is just the pure research aspect of nuclear physicists. There is also a practical side to them. As a Nuclear Physicist, you will be involved in the development of nuclear reactors. Here it will be your theories and calculations that will be put to test by the engineers and other technicians. As a Nuclear Physicist, you will coordinate and supervise the construction of the reactors. From time to time you will be required to develop new equipment and processes to make the nuclear power plant more effective and safer. 

 

In a nuclear research facility you could be involved in numerous projects. As a Nuclear Physicist, you could for instance be responsible for upgrading the radioactive material to weapons grade levels so that it can be made into a nuclear bomb. You could be testing out new isotopes (basic elements whose nuclei have been modified) to see whether they are effective against a particular form of cancer.

 

Then there are the other applications of nuclear processes like carbon dating, nuclear irradiation etc. As a Nuclear Physicist, you will be making a lot of use of Mathematics as well as computers. Most of the times the environment you will be working will be potentially hazardous. Safety becomes a very immediate concern and most often than not you will be wearing protective clothing and using robots and other mechanical devices to get the risky jobs done.

 

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