As you may know, potato chip makers fill their bags before sealing with nitrogen gas to preserve freshness. Pranksters that we are, we have replaced one bag’s nitrogen with Radon gas and sent it on its way.
A week later Joe Munchie gets the bag, opens it and eats the chips. Delicious!
I pretty much know the answer, but what do you think will happen, and why?
Joe Munchie is going to have one hell of a time selling his house…?
In addition to switching their coffee to Folgers, we’ve secretly replaced these potato chip eaters’ nonradioactive inert gas with Radon. Let’s see if they can tell the difference…
Well, it has a half-life of 3.8 days. So does this mean that by the time Joe opens the bag most of the stuff will be inactive?
No, because half life generally just means it decays into another isotope, which may well be radioactive itself.
Looking at the U238-Thorium-234 chain, it looks like any of the radon that DOES decay will shortly end up as Lead 210, which is not stable, but has a half-life of 22.3 years.
So the chips will be surrounded by clouds of powdered lead, perhaps, and the bag and its surroundings will have been hit by alpha particles and beta particles from the decaying radioactive matter. DEFINITELY not reccomended by the surgeon general.
(This is assuming Radon 222 was used, as Leaffan implied, since that’s the isotope with the 3.8 day halflife.)
Sorry for bumping this thread; I just realized that I never delivered the payoff.
The answer is that you do get some lead, but also a lot of polonium-covered potato chips.
Enjoy!
Moving thread from IMHO to Mundane Pointless Glowing Stuff I Must Share.
Does this mean that the bag would be under a vacuum by the time it got to the customer?
Joe Munchie turns into The Incredible Potato Hulk?
With a half-life of only 3.8 days, a bag full of pure radon I think would be intensely radioactive. Would the stockboy at the grocer get radiation burns?
The bag would stop alpha, and if it was metalic, the beta, and by the time it hit the shelves from the plant, a good chumk of whatever gamma would be comming out would be decayed
The chips would be cloaked in a doomsday shroud of Cobalt Thorium G.
Hey, dude, I’m not gonna eat those chips. The radon is stale.
your hair falls out, but you get 10 turns of +30 moxie