It began with an online video. Andrew Walker had watched as a collector of radioactive objects showed off the items he had procured over the years, such as antiques containing uranium. Walker thought that looking for such pieces ‘in the wild’ might make an interesting and unusual hobby – so he bought himself a Geiger counter.
Geiger counters are easy to make – so much so, in fact, that some hobbyists assemble their own and experiment with finding sources of radioactivity with which to test them. Walker himself bought one for $1,300 (£930), a RadEye meter that detects alpha, beta and gamma radiation.
It would certainly be fascinating to see how people react if everyone had a Geiger counter on their smartphone. Probably one that measures in bananas.
Then there are watch and clock faces with glow-in-the-dark paint that contains radium. Such objects are relatively safe as long as they are not taken apart, but the women who made them in factories would often hold their paint brushes using their lips. This caused them to ingest small amounts of the radium paint. As a result, many developed serious illnesses including bone cancer in their jaws.
This is why Walker tries not to put himself at any unnecessary risk. Regarding his mildly radioactive crockery, he says, “If they weren’t radioactive I’d probably have them out, but they’re tucked away.”
Some of the things manufacturers came up with are mind-boggling today. Take radioactive suppositories, for example, a ‘treatment’ with no actual grounding in medical science. Surely there are safer ways to restore “your normal manly vigour”. But that wasn’t the only health-related product seeking to help patients to a dose of decaying atoms. There was also radioactive toothpaste and even condoms. “I’ve no idea what the thinking behind those was,” says Evans of the latter. “I have a tin of them – not that I use them, I hasten to add.”
There's surely a few ideas for superheroes in there, some of them more family friendly than others.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180405-why-people-collect-radioactive-objects
I once had an old Army Surplus store analog khaki watch. I remember that when this particular timepiece finally broke, surprised as I was that this artifact had potentially survived the rigours of combat but had not survived my own childhood adventures, I scraped off the luminous (i.e. radioactive) dots on the hour markers and moving hands and placed them carefully into my eyes. Needless to say, my attempts through this activity to completely freak out a member of my family in a darkened room were quite successful and also generated some non-trivial disciplinary admonishment.
ReplyDeleteSubsequently, after ocular exposure to this mild radioactive dose, I have developed the Superpower of Tedious Raconteur being able to endlessly bore people on public transport and social media with abstruse tales of moderate personal stupidity.
😆