Fusor Forums

I managed to snag a second edition (1955) for $7 from alibris, just got my copy yesterday, and am anxious to start reading it today at lunch. From scanning through it last night, it looks interesting. One question for anyone who has multiple editions: I understand material was removed from this second edition. What material was removed? If I were to get a another copy (of the first edition) which printing would you recommend?

I'm more interested in geiger counters than scintillators at this point.

Korff was the best in th' biz. He virtually developed the modern geiger tube during WWII for the Manhattan project.
I have all of his editions in hand, plus his rare and near impossible to obtain US military training and info manual on geiger technology from the 60's.

The later editions did away with a lot of the tube circuitry, (mostly quencher circuits), and some of the involved epitome of the process of manufacture as geiger tubes became avaialble as "off-the-shelf" items during the uranium boom of the late 50's. He actually added some stuff to the later editions making them a little more fluffy than the earliest.

The earliest editions of Korff's book are on "ration paper" from WWII. The printing biz really suffered for a long time after WWII as quality paper supplies slowly returned in availability. A lot of the young folks around today don't realize rationing did not end with VE or VJ day here in the US. Poor Great Britain had full war rationing until the early 50's with limited rationing up until about 1955 or 56!! For those who shun dates, or are too young to remember, the war ended in 1945.

Fortunately, Korff's book was real popular for such a specialized tome, and there are a gang o' them at decent prices.

If you want to focus in on geiger tubes like a burning glass on an ant, you could only do worse than load up on Korff's stuff. He was the master.

Richard Hull

Yes, I remember seeing several books printed on "ration paper" while browsing the stacks of the U of Maryland engineering library (usually while looking for something more interesting to read than what I should have been working on).

His texts are easy to locate, I found a 1946 (second printing), would that be worth getting in addition to the 1955 (2nd edition) I have now? I notice the one I have has a section on scintillation counters, which probably isn't in the earlier edition(s), and I have several other texts on those anyway. GM tubes are my main interest right now. No sign of a 1945 printing yet.

Electron and Nuclear Counters