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
Nuclear cross section inelastic scattering; of the latter, amongst neutron cross sections the absorption cross sections are of particular interest. In nuclear physics it is conventional to consider the impinging particles as point particles having negligible diameter. Cross sections can be computed for any sort of process, such as capture scattering, production of neutrons, etc. In many cases, the number of particles emitted or scattered in nuclear processes is not measured directly; one merely measures the attenuation produced in a parallel beam of incident particles by the interposition of a known thickness of a particular material. The cross section obtained in this way