Topic covered today was related to nuclear fuel. We were supposed to do some research via internet about why did the price of Uranium dropped significantly around 1970’s but I am lazy to do some research on that so I guess I’ll put it on hold for now. You could read it from my clasmates' blog instead.
As a replacement, I would just like to nag a bit about this whole course. Here I go… A wise man once said that people who had never done any mistakes in their lives are the ones who actually didn’t do anything. The statement is not completely true from my point of view as we can actually learn from others’ mistakes as well. The truth is we do learn best from our own mistakes but unfortunately we don’t live long enough to do all the mistakes and learn from it plus some mistakes cost too much to bare and thus learning from others’ mistakes is the best alternative. Having said this, take Chernobyl incident as an example. It is a devastating event for the nuclear power plant industry and human history. But looking things from another perspective, the incident is a major breakthrough in nuclear power plant studies. Learning from others’ mistakes ya.
If our lecturer takes a week or 2 during lectures, telling the story of this incident in sequence then relate it to the physics in accordance with its sequence, I’m quite sure that most of the students would appreciate or even understand more on balance of reactor, multiplication factor, reactivity (reactivity coefficients, positive and negative feedback), Xenon poisoning, and control rods. Better than teaching some tedious derivation and mathematical formula which I could assure that most of the students won’t use it for the rest of their natural life. Well how much could we actually cope within 4 months right? It’s better to have a few sharp blades rather than having thousands of blunt blades in our kitchen. Meaning that; let’s not focus too much on learning a lot but learn a bit which we can easily explore in depth. The course syllabus and notes were carefully thought out which is why it is very comprehensive, everything is important, but it is futile if students can’t cope up well. Students can’t even answer general questions asked by the public related to NPP. After all it is an introduction class.
Please don’t get me wrong, this is my personal point of view. I did enjoy attending this course. In fact, it is an exciting course that I only went absent once (which is during quiz 4) in the whole semester despite its harsh schedule (6pm to 730pm even during fasting month). Again, for those who are planning to take this course, don’t change your mind after reading this. If the teaching method doesn’t suits me well, it doesn’t mean that it won’t suits you. The lecturers are quite reasonable, flexible, and very open minded. In addition young and talented (Sir please don’t deduct marks sir please…)
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