Nuclear Tunnel Borers Were Designed to Melt Tunnels

[..]

https://www.thedrive.com/news/these-forgotten-nuclear-tunnel-borers-were-designed-to-melt-tunnels-through-the-earth

[Serk]

We had some very..... interesting... ideas in the early days of the nuclear age...

...not the least of which was the Davy Crockett tactical nuclear gun...



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLEAuapfwHc

[Challenger]

Yup! I remember when almost everyone had a Radium light up dial on there watches. The women who painted the nuclear waist onto to the clock hands didn't fare to well. A lot of the old exit signs were radio active also.

[Psychotic Bovine]

Yup! I remember when almost everyone had a Radium light up dial on there watches. The women who painted the nuclear waist onto to the clock hands didn't fare to well. A lot of the old exit signs were radio active also.

I have an old baby ben wind up alarm clock that will pin my old civil defense Geiger counter on the low range.  It will nearly pin the needle on the medium range if I take the plastic lens off of the clock.
An old set of Coleman lantern mantels in my brother's garage really made the counter sing.  They contained thorium.

[..]

If you have Prime this is worth watching.

https://www.amazon.com/Radioactive-Rosamund-Pike/dp/B08DKM98PJ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2JNG7J2N37R3O&keywords=curie+movie&qid=1672260638&s=instant-video&sprefix=CURIE%2Cinstant-video%2C141&sr=1-1

[carolinarider09]

I have considered watching it several times but have not.  I may in the coming days.   

Madame (Marie) Curie is well know by everyone in nuclear power.   Primarily (pun intended) because her last name is how we measured radioactivity.   Just in case you wondered, I will save you from looking it up.   

One curie (1 Ci) is equal to 3.7 × 1010 radioactive decays per second, which is roughly the amount of decays that occur in 1 gram of radium per second and is 3.7 × 1010 becquerels (Bq). In 1975 the becquerel replaced the curie as the official radiation unit in the International System of Units (SI).

And while some "places" might use a "becquerel" it always been, since I have been in nuclear power (from 1970), the "curie".  Mostly we talk uCi (microcurie). 

So a curie is a measure of radioactivity or how active the element is for decay. 

And just in case you wondered further, Uranium 235 has a specific activity of ~2.2×10-6 Ci/g.

[Oss]

a friend of the family was a physicist who worked his whole career at the Picatinny Arsenal

He is still alive at 90, so I guess he didn't actually hold any of the uranium   

scary stuff

[carolinarider09]

So,,,,, I was wondering, because I actually forgot, what the issue with Radium was.  So, I had to look it up.

One of the isotopes of Radium decay is Radon.   Now Radon a is gas so it moves around and gets everywhere.  Radon 222 has a half-life of 3.8 days and decays by alpha decay to polonium.  OK, here is the write up and the link, if you are interested.

Radon-222 is a gas produced by the decay of radium-226. Both are a part of the natural uranium series. Since uranium is found in soil worldwide in varying concentrations, the dose of gaseous radon varies worldwide. Radon-222 is the most important and most stable isotope of radon. It has a half-life of only 3.8 days, making radon one of the rarest elements since it decays away quickly. An important source of natural radiation is radon gas, which seeps continuously from bedrock but can accumulate in poorly ventilated houses because of its high density. The fact radon is gas plays a crucial role in the spreading of all its daughter nuclei. Simply radon is a transport medium from bedrock to the atmosphere (or inside buildings) for its short-lived decay products (Pb-210 and Po-210), which posses much more health risks.

https://www.nuclear-power.com/nuclear-engineering/radiation-protection/sources-of-radiation/radon-health-effects-health-risks/radon-half-life-radon-decay/