Memoirs of a Hayseed Physicist by Peter Martel

Part 160:

A key figure in indicating the difficulties involved in deriving useful gamma-ray data for reactor operation was John Hardy, then a member of Nuclear Physics Branch at Chalk River. Hardy gave an in-house talk on a subject that caused a state of pandemonium in Physics Division, when he described the results one might expect from a statistical model of a nucleus he’d invented, and coyly called “pandemonium”. This name was, of course, meant to be similar to that of common elements like holmium, californium, lithium, germanium, tellurium, cadmium, indium, and samarium, as well as a host of other well-known “iums”. Calculations based on pandemonium showed that as much as twenty percent of the high energy gamma-ray emissions from high lying energy levels were undetectable. Without knowing all the energy levels of a given nucleus, sources of heat such as beta (electron) emissions as well as gamma-rays could not be accurately accounted for. This finding put a bit of doubt on the value of Gil’s work.