User:Rb88guy

I'm a retired nuclear scientist, and I plan to try to contribute material related to that field, as well as physics, math, and applied statistics. By way of some background, I have a Masters in Applied Nuclear Science from Georgia Tech, and science/engineering experience that began in the late 1960's-- slide rule days. I think I can make a pretty strong case that most of my work since the late 70's has been at the doctoral level, although I seem to have forgotten to actually earn the degree... ;)

I've done independent research, including publishing papers in peer-reviewed journals or books, as well as many technical reports. Some of my work as Principal Nuclear Scientist on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was "tabled," as the diplomats say, as contributions from the United States. I also worked on the Cosmic Background Explorer at Goddard Space Flight Center some years ago.

Much of this, and other, work was statistical in nature; I took a lot of graduate-level stat courses at Georgia Tech, including post-Masters. I'm a member of IEEE, and the American Statistical Association, and with these memberships I have online access to journals, which is very useful.

I see that there's a bit of material on the Army Nuclear Power Program. I served in the ANPP, in 1968-1971, and I will try to fill in some more interesting details about it; I was a Control Room Operator and also for a time the Health Physics Supervisor at the SM-1 Nuclear Power Plant. My user name refers to the fact that I discovered, yes, discovered, Rb-88 in the SM-1 reactor containment building air, as part of a lot of air monitoring work that I did at the SM-1 (using the very slide rule pictured above).

In nuclear science/engineering (I've had both titles over the years), my main interests are in radiation detection and measurement, especially particulate air monitoring and gamma-ray spectroscopy. In statistics: linear and especially nonlinear regression, time series analysis, error (uncertainty) analysis, and detection theory (hypothesis testing), as applied to various science/engineering measurement contexts. I've also done a lot of math modeling, simulation, Monte Carlo. I can code in a number of languages, including MATLAB, but these days I mostly use R. I recently bought the "home" version of Mathematica, and have already put it to use.

I've been a substitute math and physics teacher in local high schools the last few years. In the 07-08 school year I taught Advanced Placement Physics at a local high school, for the entire year. This included the AP audit, so I was "College Board-approved." The course was the C version, Newtonian Mechanics, with calculus. It was very hard work for an insultingly small paycheck, but of course I didn't do it for the money...

Aside from my technical work, I've been playing guitar since August 1962, been in several bands, played in clubs before the Beatles were known in the US, and I've done a good bit of home recording. That included the setup of lots of electronic equipment, some of which I built myself. It also included, of course, the multitrack mixdowns; this is an art in itself.

I was also a very early adopter of so-called "ten-speed" bicycles, having my first one in around 1961 or so; a good ten years before the fad in the early 70's. I showed Dan Rather how to operate a Fuji S-10-S 10-speed that I built for him, when I worked part-time as a mechanic at a bike shop in Georgetown, DC, in the fall of 73. I didn't know who he was...

I've ridden a track bike (fixed gear) since the early 60's, and still ride one today. In olden times I rode it with no brakes; today I've conceded a front brake. And a lower gear.

Major contributions
Airborne particulate radioactivity monitoring (all)

Army Nuclear Power Program (most all, was a short stub)

Unbiased estimation of standard deviation (autocorrelation section; this article needs work)

Experimental uncertainty analysis (all)

An interesting discussion on the Oort Cloud talk page.

Added some material on projectile motion in a section here:Talk:Trajectory of a projectile

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