is it possible - radiation powered snow globe?

duffahtolla

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Jun 3, 2002
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I was wondering if any CPF'er knew enough about low level radiation to tell me if my hairbrained, mad scientist idea would work.

Get a low level (Alpha or Beta) radiation source and embed it into a resin based scintilator. Scintilators react to radioactivity by converting the particle strikes into UV.

If a glow powder were mixed into the resin, would there be enough secondary light to register with the human eye?

Alpha wouldn't penetrate the resin more than a mm, so any effect it had would look like it was on the surface of the specimen. Beta would penetrate a bit, (I'm thinking a few cm) but the whole thing could be cast in a lead crystal box to begin with. Any residual gama would hopefully be toned down by the lead crystal sides.

Dangerous? yep..
Insane? Maybe..
Cool! Definitely..

Possible? You tell me.
grin.gif


I know this will work. My problem I don't know what cpm I'll need to make it visible. I seen small specimens with 25,000 cpm (mostly Beta) that looked ideal, but I don't know how many UV photons a scintilator releases per strike or how many photons the glow powder releases per UV photon.

I got the idea from my mickey mouse fantasia snow globe. It has the comet lit by an LED.

ps. Anybody know how to convert lumens into photons?
 

Roy

Farewell our Curmudgeon Administrator
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WARNING!

Remember that alpha emitting compounds are almost allways bone seakers! I for one don't want alpha particles messing with my blood producing bone marrow.
 

vcal

Flashlight Enthusiast
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Dec 16, 2000
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San Gabriel Valley
Originally posted by *BlackBart*:
I found some UK dealers...
Drop Zone Supplies Sells them for $160.-...
international shipping available.
Softmilitary.co Sells them for $120.-...
Not sure if they ship internationally.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I wonder what the difference is in the MAC105 and the MAC106? (aside from variable brightness)
confused.gif

-Also, I'm sure I saw two different sizes of that same type light on a different website about a year ago.
 

duffahtolla

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Jun 3, 2002
Messages
104
Kinda confused about what ya'll are talking about..

Do you mean these?
Lampen.GIF


Also found here

Pretty cool really..

But not what I was thinking. I don't want a portable light source powered by atomic fission. What I wanted was something like a paperweight with a naturaly radioactive rock surrounded by a diffuse blue (or maybe green, ala tommyknockers) glow.. Like this:
cerenkov_jb.jpg


I've checked into it and I think its doable. Thanks to mr.glows lead (thanks!
grin.gif
), I found that radium hands gives off about 1mRem/hr and are pretty visible. These rocks I'm checking out give off around 20mRem/hr.

Only thing I don't quite get is how Radium gets converted by the phospher. I thought phospers reacted to mostly just UV. Radium and all its daughter product stick to beta and alpha. Where is the conversion taking place?

I'd love to skip a step if I can, but I really want a transparent container and glow medium. It's the only way to get a diffuse glow.

ps. I've read (not verified) that dust stuck to monitors gets radiactive from the crt. 1500 cpm!! (background is usually around 10cpm) Doesn't last long at all tho, a very short half life of a coupla minutes.
 

AilSnail

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Jul 11, 2003
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Bergen, No
..MUST.. HAve radioactive LAMP!!! how are they adjusted? is it just a shutter? how big are they? how long before 50% light (or something)? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif
 

vcal

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Dec 16, 2000
Messages
3,074
Location
San Gabriel Valley
[ QUOTE ]
AilSnail said:
..MUST.. HAve radioactive LAMP!!! how are they adjusted? is it just a shutter? how big are they? how long before 50% light (or something)? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif

[/ QUOTE ]
Source is Tritium [³H], half-life (50% reduction of light output) -approx 12.5 years.

edit:
thanks AilSnail..haven't seen that particular website before.
 

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