Cross section (geometry) of Earth at right. Cross-sections are often used in anatomy to illustrate the inner structure of an organ, as shown at left. A cross-section of a tree trunk, as shown at left, reveals growth rings that can be used to find the age of the tree and the temporal properties of its environment. Cross section (geometry) In geometry and science, a cross section is the non-empty intersection of a solid body in three-dimensional space with a plane, or the analog in higher-dimensional spaces. Cutting an object into slices creates many parallel cross sections. The boundary of a cross section in
Neutron cross section of the order of "π r" or roughly 10 cm (thus justifying the definition of the barn). However, if measured experimentally ( "σ" = "R" / ("Φ N") ), the experimental cross sections vary enormously. As an example, for slow neutrons absorbed by the (n, γ) reaction the cross section in some cases (xenon-135) is as much as 2,650,000 barns, while the cross sections for transmutations by gamma-ray absorption are in the neighborhood of 0.001 barn (See here for more example of cross sections). The "nuclear cross section" is consequently a purely conceptual quantity representing how big the nucleus should