Last year, I read the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Deadly-Sunshine-History-Legacy-Radium/dp/0752433954" target="_blank">Deadly
Sunshine</a> <img src="../scipics/_ext.png" />. Since, I've been wondering about the present and future of Earth's isolated <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium" target="_blank">radium</a> <img src="../scipics/_wiki.png" />. What have the worlds
governments done with all the Ra that they've confiscated over the years? For example, does the <a
href="http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/radionuclides/radium.html#epadoing" target="_blank">United States government</a> <img
src="../scipics/_ext.png" /> have some sort of Ra reserve?
By the way, I highly recommend this book to <em>all</em> SM members!
[Edited on 7/9/13 by bfesser]triplepoint - 20-9-2012 at 13:53
bfesser: '"[In] a Geiger counter, there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small that perhaps in the course of the hour, one of the atoms
decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges, and [bfesser requests references]." — Erwin
Schrödinger'
This is from Erwin Schrodinger, “The Present Situation in Quantum Mechanics,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society (Nov. 29, 1935).
See translation at: http://www.tu-harburg.de/rzt/rzt/it/QM/cat.html. Your quote is from section 5. Are the Variables Really Blurred?, paragraph 3.phlogiston - 20-9-2012 at 22:59
triplepoint, the link doesn't work (error 404, object not found).triplepoint - 21-9-2012 at 05:43
The link probably broke when it wrapped to a second line. Try this:
What have the worlds governments done with all the Ra that they've confiscated over the years? For example, does the <a
href="http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/radionuclides/radium.html#epadoing" target="_blank">United States government</a> have some sort of Ra
reserve?
What have the governments done with the produced radium?
Long ago they made glowing paint from it, but when the girls who have painted the clocks died from cancer... They ignored this way of "using radium".
From that they made alloys from it with beryllium. These are used as neutron generators, the radium's alpha emission "hits"the Be and it produces a
neutron. These high activity neutron generators where used for decades (somewhere they still use some of them) for research and analytical purposes
(neutron activity analysis, neutron adsorption analysis ect.), so the produced radium was used, they didn't build up a large "stock" from it.
But I have no idea what do they make from it in the recent years.watson.fawkes - 22-9-2012 at 06:31
Erwin Schrodinger, “The Present Situation in Quantum Mechanics,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society (Nov. 29, 1935)
Thanks for posting this link. I'd never read the paper. It includes the following gem, introducing his
famous statistical-cat-death machine:
Quote:
One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against
direct interference by the cat) [...]
Clearly the thought experiment requires statistical independence
between the device and the cat for the argument to work.
And also, much less famous, his comment immediately after his first exposition of the statistical nature of QM:
Quote:
I hope later to make clear that the reigning doctrine is born of distress. Meanwhile I continue to expound it.
phlogiston - 22-9-2012 at 13:56
Thanks for posting and fixing the link, triplepoint. I too had never read it and found it very interesting.bfesser - 2-11-2012 at 15:26
Thank you for the link triplepoint, I've added it as a citation of sorts to my signature.
