Sciencemadness Discussion Board

What else can Uranium be used for?

cranium - 13-8-2006 at 06:28

Uranium and other radioactive elements are already used for:

clocks
production of energy
space travel
bombs
medical imaging
cancer treatment
smoke detectors

I think that uranium can also be used for:

super-fast computers

engineering atoms (they emit electrons and other particles, so those particles could be bound with others)

Microwaves could propel the particles which would alot for spacecraft that are even faster.

I will list more uses later, and I will also have an equation soon. What do you think?

[Edited on 13-8-2006 by cranium]

fescho - 13-8-2006 at 06:48

don't you know what processes are under way in that smoke detectors please?

unionised - 13-8-2006 at 08:59

"
I think that uranium can also be used for:

super-fast computers
"
Why do you think that?
Do you have some theoretical basis for it, or are you just assuming that radioactive things are "magic"?

not_important - 13-8-2006 at 09:04

Quote:
Originally posted by unionised
"
I think that uranium can also be used for:

super-fast computers
"
Why do you think that?
Do you have some theoretical basis for it, or are you just assuming that radioactive things are "magic"?


Spiderman isn't proof?

The_Davster - 13-8-2006 at 10:17

I suppose uranium intermetallic compounds *could* be used in computers as semiconductors or superconductors.
That is the sort of research going on in the group I work in.

IMO The risks outweigh the benifits here.

[Edited on 13-8-2006 by rogue chemist]

12AX7 - 13-8-2006 at 11:42

I heard of a UO2 transistor, but that's a far cry from highspeed semiconductors. At the moment, III-V and strained Si-Ge type semiconductors appear to be the fastest (and some tunnel junctions are reaching the IR range).

Tim

cranium - 13-8-2006 at 12:08

The super-fast computer would work somewhat like an atomic clock. The radioactive element would emit energy, and the particles would be counted. The computer would be programmed in conjunction with the particle emissions to do calculations based on that. The computer would be super-fast, extremely accurate, and great for genetics research because of the particle emission patterns. I was not thinking along the lines of semiconductors.

Nick F - 13-8-2006 at 12:20

What on earth are you talking about..?

Marvin - 13-8-2006 at 12:21

Nuclear decay is a random process, it therefore has no possabilities for computation.

Uranium can be used for dating, but I think the term 'clock' is pushing it rather too far.

Unless you mean the heavy weight on the end of a pendulum.

Jdurg - 13-8-2006 at 18:28

As mentioned in the post above mine, the process of radioactive decay is completely random. It may seem non-random based upon the large scale samples that we typically encounter, but in all reality it is random. Put ten atoms up in a line and you can say that in one half-life five of them will have decayed, but that is not always true. A half-life is like a batting average. It tells you what may happen in a certain period of time, but it is not without errors.

In addition, once the atom decays it will create another radioactive atom. This will completely throw apart any type of prediction as now you have another random decay series in place. Basically put, you cannot predict nuclear decay over a short timescale which is what would be needed to perform calculations.

franklyn - 13-8-2006 at 18:36

My favorite use is the 120 mm A.P.D.S.F.S. round
( Armour Piercing Discarding Sabot Fire Starting )
One shot and tanks are magically rendered inert.

.

not_important - 13-8-2006 at 19:32

Counting is only a small part of computing. The core of computing is logic, Boolean logic in current machines. "All of my inputs are true, so my output is true", "some of my inputs are true, so my output is true", and "my input is true, so my output is false" (actually you only need one of the first two, you can use one of them and the NOT function to create the other).

If you can make uranium atoms do that, then you can build computers. But you have to make the functionality repeatable, a computer that destroys its wiring every time you use it can be difficult to program.

Tossing random input at a computer is not a good way to get meaningful output, unless what you are after is a measurement of randomness. It's not noted for extremely accurate resumts.

Or are you talking about quantum computing?

unionised - 13-8-2006 at 21:57

While I don't agrre with Franklyn's "enthusiasm" for DU weapons I do accept that they work.
OTOH, while I can have some sympathy with Cranium's enthusiasm, I can't see something that has a 50:50 chance of doing nothing for roughly the age of the earth being involved in a super fast anything.

pantone159 - 13-8-2006 at 22:03

Quote:
Originally posted by franklyn
My favorite use is the 120 mm A.P.D.S.F.S. round
( Armour Piercing Discarding Sabot Fire Starting )
One shot and tanks are magically rendered inert.

.


F.S. is 'fin-stabilized', I think. Therefore, the tank barrel does not need to be rifled. (This would be counter-productive with finned projectiles.)

pantone159 - 13-8-2006 at 22:05

Quote:
Originally posted by unionised
While I don't agrre with Franklyn's "enthusiasm" for DU weapons I do accept that they work.


I am also not 'enthusiastic', in fact I think the world world be a better place if DU munitions were outlawed, but I have to agree that the U element sample I'd most like to get is a uranium APFSDS penetrator.

Fat chance, though. I promise I won't try and fire it from a tank, though.

JohnWW - 14-8-2006 at 01:52

Uranium, because it has a density of about 19 gm/cc, can be used as a heavier-than-lead ballast weight in the keels of high-performance yachts. Also, it may have some use in permanent magnets, as I understand that it is ferromagnetic, or is at least so in alloys with other ferromagnetic metals.

Pyrovus - 14-8-2006 at 03:08

For many years uranium was used to impart a nice fluorescent green colour to glass.

There's a picture of vase with glass containing uranium here:
http://www.webelements.com/webelements/elements/text/U/key.h...

ethan_c - 14-8-2006 at 08:55

This thread won't be interesting until someone gives an OTC source for the U metal to try and incorporate into 'superfast computers' and 'engineering atoms'.

unionised - 14-8-2006 at 08:56

IIRC one of the reagents for measuring sodium in slution was based on uranium. Notwithstanding the assertion that all Na salts are soluble and nearly all acetates are too, sodium dizinc diuranyl acetate has a low enough solubility that it can precipitate Na from solution. (The Mg compound might work too; I'm not sure)
I think some uranium compounds used to get used in photography too.

Perhaps the most ironic use of depleted uranium is as radiation shielding; it's denser than lead and has a higher atomic number so it's more effective.
The alphas that the uranium makes can be stopped with a layer of aluminium foil.
I think we have done uranium to death now.
Can we see what we can make of
"Microwaves could propel the particles which would alot for spacecraft that are even faster.".

Mr_Benito_Mussolini - 14-8-2006 at 15:19

Depleted uranium is still used for shielding in cobalt radiotherapy units.

IrC - 14-8-2006 at 15:40

Ballast in aircraft. OTC for DU is United Nuclear.

Myself, I find it does two things at once. I keep a bottle nicely marked sitting on the shelf right in front of me. People freak out when they spy it. This does two things. Start neat conversations, and gets rid of the dipshits I don't want around as their paranoia gets the better of them. So people who do know and are interested talk about it, and people who are stupid (which I don't want around anyway) usually get freaked out and leave.

I call it my miracle bottle. Works wonders without ever actually doing anything at all (other than just sit there). If I can only figure out what to use the other two bottles for, they just sit in the dark in a box all lonely.

Fleaker - 14-8-2006 at 18:12

Quote:
Originally posted by JohnWW
Uranium, because it has a density of about 19 gm/cc, can be used as a heavier-than-lead ballast weight in the keels of high-performance yachts.



Ah but I think tungsten would be far more useful and less expensive since it has a similar density (actually I think it is that of Au, 19.3 g/cc) Tungsten is also used as radiation shielding.

cranium - 14-8-2006 at 18:35

I am thinking of sort of a quantum computer.

Quantum - 14-8-2006 at 21:05

Quote:

The super-fast computer would work somewhat like an atomic clock. The radioactive element would emit energy, and the particles would be counted. The computer would be programmed in conjunction with the particle emissions to do calculations based on that. The computer would be super-fast, extremely accurate, and great for genetics research because of the particle emission patterns. I was not thinking along the lines of semiconductors.



This is coming from the same guy that is worried about the "chlorine" from a few mouthfuls of water in a pool......(Someone from totse perhaps)

But talking about real uses of U - sabot KE penetrating rods. As they impact the metal apparently is "self shapening" meaning it fragments sort of like flint and of course it is pyrophoric.

Perhaps bringing 2 sub critical half spheres together could be used to bombard something with intense radiation - so long as it isn't yourself.

ethan_c - 15-8-2006 at 09:44

Quote:
Originally posted by Fleaker
Quote:
Originally posted by JohnWW
Uranium, because it has a density of about 19 gm/cc, can be used as a heavier-than-lead ballast weight in the keels of high-performance yachts.



Ah but I think tungsten would be far more useful and less expensive since it has a similar density (actually I think it is that of Au, 19.3 g/cc) Tungsten is also used as radiation shielding.


We have a huge excess of DU from the nuclear power/weapons manufacturing industry, just sitting around. Tungsten we buy mostly from China.

unionised - 15-8-2006 at 11:15

Uranium is roughly twice as abundant in the earth's crust as tungsten.
Under the sort of conditions that occcur in armour piercing shells the metals behave pretty much like liquids; their tensile strengths are very much smaller than the forces involved. The thing that makes the difference is momentum and therefore density.
It's better at sheilding because it has a higher nuclear charge.

"I am thinking of sort of a quantum computer. "
OK, let's run with this idea.
A quantum computer (so far as I understand it and that's not very far) relies on the production of a superposition of states.
The only thing that uranium does that's interesting (in this field) is that it decays.
If I have a collection of uranium (If my maths is right it's about a miligram) and wait a second one atom decays (on average) so I then have a superposition of one ground state (the one that decayed) with roughly a bilion bilion excited states.
To get this production of a superposition to happen at roughly the same rate as the clock in my rather slow computer (1GHz) I need enough uranium that it decays aboout a billion times a second. If I get the maths right again (and frankly I don't care if I have lost track of a zero or two) I need roughly 100Kg of uranium. Somewhere randomly generated in that, there will probably be a superposition of a decayed and undecayed state every nanosecond or so.
Just as soon as I work out how to find it in among a huge block of uranium and then work out what to do with it I can build a computer withan effective clockrate rather less than I could buy in the local charity shop.
Of course, if you were to use enriched uranium the larger decay rate would help. You might get away with roughly 10Kg of enriched uranium.
Be very very careful what shape you make this computer.

When you said "I am thinking of sort of a quantum computer.", just how much thinking had you actually done?

For what it's worth the decay of radioactive materials is a really good random number generator. With a few exceptions (mainly to do with k capture) there is absolutely nothing that can be done to alter the rate of decay. How do youpropose to "program" the computer?
All the uranium atoms will do exactly as they please so the outcome will be random, predictable in the same way as lottery numbers, but not a lot of use.

[Edited on 15-8-2006 by unionised]

franklyn - 16-8-2006 at 09:12

Einstein reportedly said one time, " I don't know what weapons will be used
in a third world war, but I know what weapons will be used in the fourth,
sticks and stones. I take it those of you who decry the marshall uses of DU
have a preference for pouring boiling oil on the barbarians at the gate.

For a peaceful use and one which has unexploited potential, is the legendary
and infamous little green pill. Uranium Carbide in contact with water produces
octane,better known as gasoline. The oxide can be recycled to obtain the carbide
once more in a closed cycle. Adaption of this to a process that can work just on
the surface without the bulk processing would go a long way for commercialization.


.

Mr_Benito_Mussolini - 17-8-2006 at 02:05

"I take it those of you who decry the marshall uses of DU
have a preference for pouring boiling oil on the barbarians at the gate."

There are no barbarians at the gate. Describing those you wish to conquer as savages in need of civilisation is an old trick, providing the moral justification for imperialism on a vast scale from Roman times to the current day.

"Uranium Carbide in contact with water produces octane,better known as gasoline."

Where are you going to get the energy to drive this process, from fossil fuels perhaps?

Marvin - 17-8-2006 at 12:41

Aparently the infamous little green pill is so infamous that I haven't heard of it.

So, which carbide of uranium would that be? The monocarbide produces mainly hydrogen and methane with some messy products of C2 to C6, or to C8 according to some reports, and the sesquicarbide produces mixed hydrogen and C2 to C8 hydrocarbons. From the descriptions the actual amount of C8 hydrocarbons is very small with nothing in the abstracts specifically identified as octane.

As far as I can see it the most logical route to make octane from uranium carbide involves its use as nuclear fuel. If the implication is you can carry a small amount of uranium carbide, add water and get useful amount of burnable fuel, then this is laughable.

franklyn - 19-8-2006 at 22:49

Quote:
Originally posted by Mr_Benito_Mussolini
Where are you going to get the energy to drive this process, from fossil fuels perhaps?

Of course , how else do you convert coal to lquid fuel ?
Quote:
Originally posted by Marvin
Aparently the infamous little green pill is so infamous that I haven't heard of it. If the implication is you can carry a small amount of uranium carbide, add water and get useful amount of burnable fuel, then this is laughable.

As far as I can see it the most logical route to make octane from uranium carbide involves its use as nuclear fuel.


It's a very old scam, dates to just after the first world war.
Certainly that would have been an implication.

There are better routes to gasification, see my post here ->
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=5923&a...

.