• NASA Resumes Production Of Plutonium-238 Space Fuel After 25 Years
    39 replies, posted
[QUOTE=ycap5;39927950]But I'm allergic to shellfish![/QUOTE] Well, if you get cancer that means you'll probably die!
[QUOTE=Del91;39931357]Well, if you get cancer that means you'll probably die![/QUOTE] Allergic to cancer.
[QUOTE=ironman17;39922309]Gamma's the big one; real high-frequency photons that can pass through so much matter and disconcertedly mutate organic matter. I forgot that alpha and beta are much easier to block than gamma. Also, I forget if I asked this yonks ago, but is there any way to accelerate the decay of radioactive substances, like passing an electrical current through them or exposing them to streams of alpha particles?[/QUOTE] Doesn't everything radioactive decay with gamma, though? I thought it was alpha and gamma or beta and gamma. At least, that's what my 7th grade physics teacher told me.
[QUOTE=Riller;39931468]Doesn't everything radioactive decay with gamma, though? I thought it was alpha and gamma or beta and gamma. At least, that's what my 7th grade physics teacher told me.[/QUOTE] No. [editline]16th March 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=ironman17;39925128]Hmmm; so in theory to make an element on the island of stability you'd probably need exotic nucleons that have higher levels of nuclear force than the average proton or neutron? If nuclear force is what holds most atoms together, that is. I'm certain that the positive charge of protons is what holds the electrons in orbit around the nucleus and completes the atom, but what's to prevent those tiny little electrons from crashing into the nucleus; is it based off of the same principles that makes the Moon orbit around the Earth and not come crashing down, or is it something completely different?[/QUOTE] Electrons don't crash because their "orbits" are quantized (i.e. they have to be at certain energy levels). Nothing is actually in orbit; the planetary model you're first taught in school is wrong.
[QUOTE=shian;39922585]Looks like strawberry flavoured.[/QUOTE] Looks more like cherry to me, strawberry flavored stuff is usually more pinkish, at least where I am.
[QUOTE=D3TBS;39921692][url]http://www.jellotime.com/[/url][/QUOTE] oh dear god i looked at all the websites in the top bar there what what what what what what what what what what
The plutonium looks like a ice pop.
[QUOTE=ironman17;39925128]is it based off of the same principles that makes the Moon orbit around the Earth and not come crashing down, or is it something completely different?[/QUOTE] Yeah, it's called quantum mechanics. If the electrons were classical (ie. orbiting like the moon) they'd be emitting electromagnetic radiation as they rotate, causing them to fall inwards to the nucleus and the atom would decay in an extremely short amount of time. The magic of QM is that the electrons don't do that, but instead stay on certain radii around the atom, where they just don't emit EM radiation, so they stay orbiting forever. And because the radii are very specific, they have very specific kinetic energy and angular momentum ("quantized" energy and angular momentum). If they gain energy from something, they "jump" to a higher radius and vice versa for losing energy. [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niels_Bohr[/url]
[QUOTE=ironman17;39922309]Gamma's the big one; real high-frequency photons that can pass through so much matter and disconcertedly mutate organic matter. I forgot that alpha and beta are much easier to block than gamma. Also, I forget if I asked this yonks ago, but is there any way to accelerate the decay of radioactive substances, like passing an electrical current through them or exposing them to streams of alpha particles?[/QUOTE] Not alpha particles, (which is an ionized He nucleus) but, for example, in a nuclear bomb, a neutron collides with a U-238 atom, which releases neutrons as well as less massive atoms when it decays. These neutrons will then collide with neighboring U-238 atoms, and so on and so on. If the sample is massive enough, it will cascade until every single atom is undergoing a release of energy at once. [editline]16th March 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=ironman17;39925128]Hmmm; so in theory to make an element on the island of stability you'd probably need exotic nucleons that have higher levels of nuclear force than the average proton or neutron? If nuclear force is what holds most atoms together, that is. I'm certain that the positive charge of protons is what holds the electrons in orbit around the nucleus and completes the atom, but what's to prevent those tiny little electrons from crashing into the nucleus; is it based off of the same principles that makes the Moon orbit around the Earth and not come crashing down, or is it something completely different?[/QUOTE] [img]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fjQAZidF9Kc/Tb9KIl_jaOI/AAAAAAAAADs/-jdC7QhF7QM/s1600/ch9orbitals1.jpg[/img] Electrons are wierd.
Huh, sounds legit. My reasons behind the question of accelerating radioactive decay was based around the principle of squeezing more energy out of radioactive waste whilst simultaneously making it decay into less hazardous elements, which would make those radioactive waste storage places less hazardous for the tribes of the dark future, so they wouldn't end up dying out due to meddling with the "searing scales of the Elder Serpent" or whatever mythology they'd build around the accursed vitrified waste.
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