engineering

John M. Carpenter

John M. Carpenter is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand John M. Carpenter rather than just read about it. In short: John M. "Jack" Carpenter (June 20, 1935 - March 10, 2020) was an American nuclear engineer known as the originator of the technique for utilizing accelerator-induced intense pulses of neutrons for research and developing the first spallation slow neutron source based on a proton synchrotron, the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source (IPNS). He died on 10 March 2020.

Key takeaways

John M. Carpenter belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect John M. Carpenter to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of John M. Carpenter from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

John M. "Jack" Carpenter (June 20, 1935 - March 10, 2020) was an American nuclear engineer known as the originator of the technique for utilizing accelerator-induced intense pulses of neutrons for research and developing the first spallation slow neutron source based on a proton synchrotron, the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source (IPNS). He died on 10 March 2020.

Education Carpenter earned the Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering Science at Pennsylvania State University in 1957 and the Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in Nuclear Engineering at the University of Michigan in 1958 and 1963, respectively. His dissertation is titled Prediction and Measurement of Neutron Chopper Burst Shapes.

Career Following completion of his Ph.D., Carpenter took a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Michigan Institute for Science and Technology in Ann Arbor, Michigan, from 1963 to 1964. In 1964 he joined the UM faculty as an assistant professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering; he was promoted to full professor in 1973. In 1975, Carpenter moved to the Argonne National Laboratory, where he developed the first-ever pulsed Spallation Neutron Source for neutron scattering, the ZGS (Zero Gradient Synchrotron) Intense Neutron Generator Prototype (ZING-P), which then led in 1981 to the construction of the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source (IPNS) used in a broad range of neutron research. Internationally known as "Dr. Spallation," he helped develop other sources, including the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI) Multiprogram Research Facility, the European Spallation Source in Sweden; and smaller scale sources at the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source in the UK, the Kō Enerugī Kasokuki Kenkyū Kikō (KEK) Neutron Science Laboratory (KENS) in Japan, the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), and the Swiss Spallation Neutron Source (SINQ) in Switzerland. In 1977 he and colleagues Rex G. Fluharty of LANL, Motoharu Kimura of Japan, and Leo C. W. Hobbis of the UK cofounded the International Collaboration on Advanced Neutron Sources (ICANS), a forum for collaborating on neutron research and innovative neutron systems. During his career, Carpenter has held a number of term appointments at public and private institutions, including Visiting Scientist at Phillips Petroleum Company, Nuclear Technology Branch, Idaho Falls, Idaho, Fall 1965; Argonne National Laboratory, Solid State Science Division, 1971–1972, 1973; Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Physics Division, 1973; and the Japanese Laboratory for High Energy Physics, Kō Enerugī Kasokuki Kenkyū Kikō, (KEK), 1982 and 1993. He has also served as senior physicist and manager for the Argonne National Laboratory, Solid State Science Division, Intense Pulsed Neutron Source Project, 1975–1978; technical director for the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source Project, 1978; senior technical advisor for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Spallation Neutron Source project, Experimental Facilities Division, 1998, and the Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory, periodically since 1997; and as adjunct professor of nuclear engineering and member of the graduate faculty of Iowa State University, 1987–1989. Carpenter served as a member of the 1977 U.S. Delegation to the USSR on Fundamental Properties of Matter, Item 21 of the 1973 Nixon-Brezhnev Agreement on US-USSR Cooperation in Research, Development and Utilization of Nuclear Energy; the Pennsylvania State University College of Engineering Industrial and Professional Advisory Council, 1984–1986; the National Steering Committee for the Advanced Neutron Source, 1986–1996; the Visiting Committee for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Nuclear Engineering, 1989–1995; the External Review Committee for the Los Alamos Accelerator Production of Tritium project, 1993–1998; the International Scientific Council of AUSTRON, Verein zur Förderung einer Großforschungsanlage in Österreich, from 1993; the Technical Advisory Committee of the European Spallation Source, from 2001; and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Scientific Advisory Committee for the Spallation Neutron Source, 1996–2001. He has served as scientific reviewer for the journals Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Review of Scientific Instruments, Nature, Nuclear Science and Engineering; for the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation; and as editor for numerous conference proceedings. He is a member of American Nuclear Society (Chairman, Southeast Michigan Section, 1974–75, Fellow, 2002), American Physical Society (Fellow, Division of Condensed Matter Physics, 1990), Neutron Scattering Society of America, Swiss Neutron Scattering Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Sigma Xi. He has authored over 180 publications and technical reports, a patent for the pulsed source moderator reflector (U.S. Pat. No. 3,778,627), and co-authored two books, Living With Nuclei: 50 Years in the Nuclear Age, Memoirs of a Japanese Physicist with Motoharu Kimura. and Elements of Slow-Neutron Scattering: Basics, Techniques, and Applications with Chun-K. Loong. Carpenter associated with the AES Division of the Advanced Photon Source, an Office of Science User Facility operated for the U.S. Department of Energy by Argonne National Laboratory. He consulted at the Spallation Neutron Source, was a visiting professor of physics at Indiana University, was the spokesperson for the Union of Compact Accelerator-Driven Neutron Sources (UCANS), and was active in the preservation and communication of the history of nuclear engineering, with emphasis on how its development relates to current and future technologies.

Awards and recognition Formal recognition of Carpenter's contributions include:

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with John M. Carpenter

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what John M. Carpenter claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to John M. Carpenter before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about John M. Carpenter ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of John M. Carpenter

In research: John M. Carpenter appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses John M. Carpenter in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: John M. Carpenter is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1935 births, 2020 deaths, Engineers from Pennsylvania, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for John M. Carpenter outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “John M. Carpenter” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study John M. Carpenter in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what John M. Carpenter means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain John M. Carpenter out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is John M. Carpenter in simple terms?

Why does John M. Carpenter matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study John M. Carpenter?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on John M. Carpenter.