Canada’s W. Bennett Lewis (Ben), a physicist who bestrode the first thirty years of CANDU development, typified the early reactor pioneers by being extremely capable. Listen to this extract from a eulogy by his colleagues:
An incident that occurred during this period illustrates Lewis’s manner of working. For technical reasons the pressure and temperature of the steam in nuclear power plants are lower than in conventional plants and consequently yield a lower thermodynamic efficiency. The steam cycles of standard turbines were matched to the better conditions of conventional plants and modifications were required for optimum efficiency in nuclear plants. This presented a challenge to Lewis. He called a young engineer into his office to discuss steam cycles, eventually borrowing a textbook for the weekend. By Monday he was an expert on theoretical aspects of the subject. (This is not sarcasm as some who did not know him well might assume.) During the next few weeks he and the engineer delved deeply into steam cycle calculations and were in contact with the consulting engineer who was doing the official study. Lewis came up with a cycle which, although marginally more efficient than the official one, was not adopted because the heat-exchange system was more elaborate. Nevertheless, he satisfied himself with the validity of the official result and his probing into the technical details almost certainly improved that result. An indication of his consideration for others impressed the engineer: the textbook was in near mint condition; when returned it was in brown paper covers which protected it while on loan.
Lovell, Bernard, & D. G. Hurst. 1988. “Wilfred Bennett Lewis.” In Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, Vol. 34, 453-509. Royal Society, London, pp. 490-491.
