Showing posts with label physics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label physics. Show all posts

Radioactivity...

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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