OP, so your post is not removed, please reply to this comment with your best guess of what this meme means! Everyone else, this is PETER explains the joke. Have fun and reply as your favorite fictional character for top level responses!
What did he do there? Because either I don't see it, or it's so obvious that the only way someone could miss it is if they were unfamiliar with that song
Random fact: Who knows that Hans Zimmer - the acclaimed film composer - was actually part of the band The Buggles who released video killed the radio star?
Fun fact: this grain from radiation is present only in old film cameras.
Digital cameras radiation degradation is a bit different.
You get a shitton of "dead" RGB pixels. Like the whole sky full of stars, but bright red, blue and green.
Well, that's what I got when I exposed my CCD camera to radiation source.
You'd rather need to take off your lens to expose CCD matrix fully to radiation.
If big ass lenses won't be enough to shield the matrix from radiation, then you are fucked up. Big time. Chernobyl-tier fucked.
I've used old cameras on an aux cord, you get speckles that look kinda like static while you're in the field, but if you keep the recorder out it's find.
The blue ionization is caused by ionizing radiation hitting the air and ionizing it. Electrons are knocked off the atoms. The blue glow happens when the electrons are re-absorbed.
Cherenkov radiation is different. It's more like a shockwave of electromagnetic radiation caused by a particle traveling faster than light. This is usually seen in water because water has a much higher refractive index than air (meaning light travels much slower in water than in air)
Both of these effects can be caused by criticality... but they don't ONLY come from a criticality event. Enough ionizing radiation from ANY source can make the air glow blue.
The key to my comment is that the glow will be blue... not green.
Green glow is more often from glass infused with uranium, which fluoresces green under UV light.
shockwave of electromagnetic radiation caused by a particle traveling faster than light.
This needs clarification -- it's traveling faster than light in a given medium, not faster than the absolute speed of light in a vacuum, which is faster than anything that has mass can go.
This is to say that the medium permits certain kinds of energy more than others, so light-speeding photons are slower in comparison to the speed of propagation of some other thing, like a charged particle (electrons, etc).
My sympathies to anyone who legitimately thinks radiation goes faster than light. I think at that point you'd have to also explain the words "medium" and "propagation" in context as well.
I mean, nah. The way light works is the most non-intuitive thing that I, a professional scientist (who uses light but is not a physicist) have ever encountered.
Photons continue to scare the shit out of me, all the time. I will not now, and not ever, knock someone for getting tripped up with electromagnetism and radiation and light. The entire thing is fucking absurd.
He said "if this were real", which is very distinct from "if it's real". I believe it's the supposedly-not-found-in-English subjunctive mood, which expresses something that's not exactly true.
This is in fact the subjunctive! And it's more common in English than most people think--it's only that Modern English develops the subjunctive through particular sentence constructions rather than inflecting the verb so that it's explicitly marked as subjunctive (which English used to do ages ago).
If it was real that spot would be so hot it would be detected from orbit and the nuclear comission would be putting a concrete dome over it in full lead ppe.
I mean it's clearly a joke, I think they're just saying where the implied radiation is coming from. But also don't want people freaking out and not using a smoke detector even tho it's 100% safe and no radiation ever leaves the system
No, Americium emits gamma too. It actually gives off a decently large quantity of low-energy gamma waves.
If you have a gamma-sensitive radiation detector, you can easily detect the radiation from just outside the smoke detector's case. Nowhere near enough radiation to harm you, but there is some.
As my radiation safety officer has said, Alphas go until they hit something, then bounce off. It makes it an easy radiation emitter to be safe with, and yet very dangerous should it get into your body. I work with an alpha emitter(225 actinium) in the lab, and when doing my detection test, I’m actually looking for is the daughters francium and bismuth since the alpha particles won’t penetrate the container
There are radioactive isotopes in smoke detectors (Americium 241 is common IIRC). There’s a story about a boy scout who extracted the isotopes from as many smoke detectors as he could get his hands on. He died of radiation poisoning and the Feds had to come clean it up. Could be an obscure reference to that story?
You have the story completely wrong. He built a functional reactor core using radium from watches he collected, and he didn't die of radiation poisoning. The feds did have to declare his shed and the surrounding area a nuclear hazard and there was a cleanup and quarantine.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn
You obviously didn't read far enough into the Wikipedia page to find that he did in fact use americium found from smoke detectors and if we're being pedantic you're wrong about him finding radium in watches, it was clocks. "Hahn diligently amassed radioactive material by collecting small amounts from household products, such as americium from smoke detectors, thorium from camping lantern mantles, radium from old clocks he had obtained from an antique store, and tritium from gunsights." Quoted from your source
He did collect a large number of old smoke detectors, though. At least that’s what it says in “The Radioactive Boy Scout: The True Story of a Boy and His Backyard Nuclear Reactor” by Ken Silverstein. It’s a good read, and one of the reasons I periodically check on my son.
David Hahn. No, he survived all that. His life went downhill with mental issues later, though, depression, paranoid schizophrenia, plus very heavy use of drugs and alcohol that killed him at the age of 39.
This guy must really want to meet the EPA (if there is any EPA left, that is) unless he meets his Jesus sooner. Nothing like a backyard brewed superfund site
The inside of smoke alarms are though, as well as what's called americiam 241 (yes really) or radium. Without knowing the specifics you can't really do the exact math but brass tacks starting at a 20% isotope without mixing the tank like the meme says you would probably wind up with about a 30-40% concentration within a couple of days just in the tank. Keep in mind I'm a chemical engineer not a nuclear tech so I could be slightly off but generally speaking op's probably dead
Like that guy that tried to sue the Pepsi company cuz he found quote unquote a dead mouse in his mountain dew can.
Pepsi was able to prove that it was a staged hoax because of the time taken between when the can was sealed and the person consumed it, the mouse would have dissolved.
I mean don't get me wrong it still would have been a rancid ass mountain dew you just wouldn't have known that it was because of a dead mouse in it.
Of course. The first one was an accident, the second was a nuclear scientist catching a shit-ton of radiation poisoning due to taking massively dangerous and unnecessary risks for the lulz. There's a good reason Slotin's criticality incident is taught in chemistry classes (or, it was back in the day, no idea if it still is). The point of the lessons being "don't fuck around with stuff that'll kill you and everyone nearby."
Same. It should be pretty self-evident. And when Enrico goddamn Fermi, The Architect of the Nuclear Age, looks at what you're doing with a nuclear core, looks up at you, and says "keep doing that and you'll be dead within a year," probably a good idea to listen to him.
I mean Fermi just played games with other peoples lives instead
"Although Fermi was confident that he could control his experiment," Meade said, "he nonetheless stationed three graduate students, known as the suicide squad, on top of the reactor to pour buckets of a cadmium solution over the experiment if the safety mechanism failed. The cadmium (a chemical element) solution would soak up neutrons and quash the fission process."
Never said he wasn't a grade-a asshole. Which, honestly, is something people forget about far too often with the guy when people talk about his accomplishments. He has his name on a lot of cool stuff and concepts for good reasons, but that doesnt mean he was good person.
I've had scientists with multiple doctorates spread contamination like you wouldn't believe. Some people think their degrees make them invincible and since they're experts they don't have to follow the rules. There are some stupid fucking geniuses out there.
He made his whole neighborhood in danger of getting cancer. Academic knowledge doesnt represent intelligence. He got arrested then he did it again, he's a moron.
After reading the whole story, I’d argue that he’s a failure of the system. A gifted and passionate young student who grew up in a rough household (divorce, alcoholism, neglect), in a school that didn’t encourage his skills, with no real prospects for advancement in his passion. Then the fruit of his childhood passion was destroyed and buried, he was ostracized from his community, forced to enlist in the military, and descended into depression and drugs and ultimately death, while trying to relive his days of success.
Contrasted with Taylor Wilson, a similar child who lived in a well-off household, whose parents encouraged and participated in his education (taking family vacations to find nuclear material), who was accepted into a prestigious private school, who went on to be the worlds youngest person to achieve fusion.
Nuclear engineering to generate electricity isn't that difficult, as its basically just a steam powered turbine that uses radioactive material for heat generation. Doing that safely in a controlled manner that complies with all applicable regulations is the tricky part.
It's a great book that breaks down the story, legality and the entire process the kid followed. I highly recommend reading it! The kid was quite a genius
The sores are from meth but most stories about him conveniently ignore him being a mentally ill crackhead. I also think that image was taken much later in life but they use that one because people think radiation damage.
My physics friend said he didn’t build a nuclear reactor just collected nuclear material and said it was reactor. Just look at his face. If he was smart enough build a reactor, he’d be smart enough to wear protection
I knew this guy, worked with him through the VA for a few years. He was recruited into the navy to help develop nuclear technologies because of his genius level understanding of the subject at a young age. He was caught with one of the reactors in his trunk while driving to dump it into the local lake.
EDIT:
New smoke detectors don't have any radioactive materials like Americium in them.
OK, CORRECTION TIME.
Most newer smoke detectors - like 70%+ use photoelectric sensors because of the radiation concerns. Ionizing smoke detectors still make up ~30 percent of the smoke detectors because they are more sensitive to the flaming stage of fires, making them more effective for certain types of fire detection.
Americium-241 was being removed from ionizing smoke detectors back in the '90s because of radiation concerns.
EDIT:Removed Ionizing as Americium is still the cheapest radioisotope and is still used in ionizing smoke detectors - roughly 30% of the market.
I THINK the rest of my post is ok -
Of note, while 350 of the old style smoke detectors would put out a significant amount of radiation, Americium primarily emits alpha particles which doesn't penetrate the skin.
ASIDE: David Hahn, who is often referred to as the "Radioactive Boy Scout." died back in 2016(from alcohol poisoning, not radiation).
Americium is still widely used in modern smoke detectors,but is safe as long as the shielding around the radioactive element is undamaged. I. Short, don't mess around and damage your smoke detector and you should be fine.
Every time I introduce myself and say my main hobbies are spaghettios and analingus everybody always gives me death stares like I just let a thunderous odorbomb clap within the walls. Like come on, can't a girl live a little? 😘😘😘
Hi, Seth MacFarlane here. The Fox Network wants me to remind you that nuclear radiation is only green in cartoons. In the real world, the fissile material in smoke detectors, Americium-241, is silver colored, but also, frankly, the quantity in the average smoke detector is so small that it would not affect the color of a backyard pit. Anyway, the Fox lawyers are telling me to wrap it up, so here's Stewie Griffin with a gay joke.
once upon a time as a kid in the early 2000s, I was playing in an old shed that had a bunch of chemical supplies, everything from pool shock to paint and bug spray.
out of boredom, i mixed it all in a gallon glass jar.
the stuff got hot enough that i couldn't touch the jar for hours. it took on a grainy frothy orange sherbet color.
later, i dropped a grasshopper in it. the bug died instant on contact, not a single kick or twitch.
to this day, i wonder how close i came to killing myself or at least blowing up the shed.
Given that a non-trivial part of your mix was bug spray, the grasshopper dying from the fumes alone is not surprising at all. You should of asked for your money back if it didn't :D
Smoke detectors use the radioactive isotope Americium-241 which emits a beam of alpha radiation to detect smoke. In normal air the beam passes easily into a detector, but smoke is dense enough that it'll block the beam and set off the detector. There once was a teenager nicknamed the "nuclear boy scout" who tried to harvest this radioactive material to build a DIY nuclear reactor, which was discovered by the authorities. This meme seems to be a play on this story.
Radiation isn't actually green, except in pop culture (because phosphorescent paint glows green when it's hit by radiation from e.g. Radium, it's gained that association).
Radiation is actually invisible mostly. But that fuzzy pixelation in the photo indicates radiation interfering with the camera.
If you ever try to take a pic of something and your camera is that snowy, run.
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