So... this post might seem random, but it's something I've been thinking about today. It's about something (that I find) interesting that my physics professor said in class last night.
He told us a question posed to him when he was a young engineer working on an oil rig. The question is this: If you have a piece of radioactive material about the size of a piece of chalk (this is the size that he was using on the rig for some unknown reason...) and you don't have a lead box, how do you trasnsport it without killing yourself?
Answer: Well what makes something radioactive is the fact that a whole bunch of neutrons are coming off the substance (not exactly but w/e), and these neutrons are what are harmful to people. So you want to transport it in something that has a lot of protons. Something that has a lot of protons is hydrogen. So... you want to transport it in something that has a lot of hydrogen. One common substance would be water (H2O).
So if you ever need to transport some radioactive material, and you don't have a lead container, just use a bucket of water. I'm sure that would save your internal organs from frying. Or maybe not. :\
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