Radioactivity and Clock Chimes

The April 30, 1999 Column:

If you were radioactive, would you glow? Who wrote the clock chime tune? Click here for the complete column.

I wonder if the movie referred to was “The Atomic Kid”, starring Mickey Rooney? This topic reminds me of the documentary I saw a while back about people who used to paint watches and clocks (using small brushes) with radium so they would glow in the dark. As I recall, after repeatedly using these brushes, a lot of the painters would form a point on their paint brushes by wetting the bristles in their mouths. Predictably, many of those workers started having health problems. I grew up in Central Kansas and there was a nearby town named Radium that also did this kind of work, I think.

This mention of the Sc-Fi-B-Movie rule that “All Radioactive Things Must Glow” reminds me of the MST3K episode where our friends are watching a scene where an airplane begins to exhibit a green glow, and one of them exclaims, “He’s suddenly acquired a cool minty flavour!”

Cecil mentioned “the speed of light in a vacuum.” Just thought I’d let everybody know that the term “jiffy” is defined to be the time it takes for light to travel 1 cm in a vacuum. We can thank those goofy scientific knuckleheads behind the Manhattan Project for this one.

If current scientific theory holds, there is an opposite for everything, i.e.: every action has an equal and opposite reaction, mater vs. anti-matter, etc. Following that line of thinking (and assuming you are not currently glowing), in an alternate universe you are able to glow with out the help of radiation. If fact, in that universe you’d be asking if excessive radiation would sop you from glowing.

A “jiffy”? Can anyone verify this story? I checked MEASURE FOR MEASURE by Richard Young and Thomas Glover, which lists 39,000 conversion factors from “aam” to “zuz” and could not find a jiffy. Although “Speed of Light” appears under the section of Physical Constants and Defining Constants.

if glow-in-the-dark watch hands have radium and zinc oxide on them, wouldn’t they put out harmful radiation? I always thought that radium was a really dangerous substance. Is it just in sufficiently small amounts to be safe?


“And I say, ‘Look, I have no hands!’ but everyone around me says, ‘What are hands?’”
-Dune

zinc sulfide I mean, not that I care

Actually, the amount of radiation put out by the glow-in-the-dark watch hands, while real, is pretty insignificant. If you were to collect thousands of watch hands and keep them in your pocket all day long, you might be in trouble. However, the poor people who had to paint the watch hands had lots of problems with radioactivity (increased cancer rates, etc.).

TheDude

From Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary

Main Entry: jif·fy
Pronunciation: 'ji-fE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural jiffies
Etymology: origin unknown
Date: 1779
: MOMENT, INSTANT <ready in a jiffy>

(Especially note the date: 1779.)

The original watch factory was in Waltham, MA, “Watch City”, where I live. The watch painters had much higher rates of mouth cancer than normal, because of “pointing” their brushes in their mouths. The rumoured watch factory building is located – you guessed it – across the street from an elementary school.

But getting vaguely back on the subject, what about people who are injected with radioactive compounds for medical imaging purposes? If we painted them with zinc sulfide or another flourescent compound, would they glow?


“. . . and all places are alike to me.”
–R. Kipling

[[if glow-in-the-dark watch hands have radium and zinc oxide on them, wouldn’t they
put out harmful radiation? I always thought that radium was a really dangerous
substance. Is it just in sufficiently small amounts to be safe?]] -awldune

Radium in small amounts is not dangerous, in fact it is a moderately common trace element in coal. Main problem here is that everyone knows that Curie died of cancer, and she discovered radium…therefore the reasoning goes, radium killed her. Curie might have died from radium radiation, though she also dealt with a lot of other radioactive substances, she did spend a long time refining a large amount of radium in her attempts to isolate it. (I say her even though Pierre Curie was also there, but since he died in an accident, is not germain to this.) But the amount of radium and other radioactive substances she dealt with was far more than the average person would ever come in contact with.

[[But getting vaguely back on the subject, what about people who are injected with
radioactive compounds for medical imaging purposes? If we painted them with zinc
sulfide or another flourescent compound, would they glow?]] -KatByHerself

Nope. Here one is dealing with the fact that there are three ‘types’ of radioactive decay. Alpha, Beta, and Gamma particles are given off by radioactive substances, each type of particle has certain properties if you will. I am not a physicist, so my memory might be off here. Alpha particles are nonionising/penitrating, which means they go far, but don’t make other objects radioactive. For some reason, I seem to remember Alpha particles are electrons, but I am probably wrong here. Beta particles are ionising/nonpenitrating which means they don’t go far ,but have a chance to make something radioactive (They can be stopped by a piece of paper.) I can’t recall what a Beta particle is though. Gamma particles are ionising/penitrating, which means they go far, and can make things radioactive. Gamma particles are hydrogen atoms moving very fast if I remember right. The dyes used by medicine for visualizing are usually primarily radioactive in the alpha style. Again, physics class was a few years ago, and I don’t have my books here at work (Well, I do, but only the ones on circuit theory and programming. :slight_smile: ) So I might have some of the specifics wrong, for one thing I think there might be a mistake in Gamma, since Gamma radiation in used in sterilization of food.

Narile has the basic idea correct, but some of the specifics are mixed up. Alpha particles are helium nuclei (2 protons, 2 neutrons) that are ejected from the nucleus. Because they are big and heavy, they are non-penetrating (these are the ones that are stopped by a piece of paper), but potentially ionizing (which does not mean that they can make other things radioactive, but merely means that they can strip electrons off of other molecules to make reactive ions.

Beta particles are electrons that have been ejected from the nucleus (yes, I know there are no electrons in the nucleus; a neutron is converted to a proton in the process), and because they are about 4000 times lighter than alpha particles, they are more penetrating.

Gamma rays are high energy photons that are ejected from the atom. These photons have no mass, and will therefore keep going until absorbed by something. Whatever it is that does the absorption then absorbs a lot of energy and can use that energy to react in some way.

According to my handy periodic table, radium decays by the emission of alpha and gamma radiation. My guess is that it is the gamma radiation that is responsible for the glowing. The high energy gamma rays are absorbed by the zinc sulfide, which then decays by emission of a photon of visible light.

The Dude

If you were to tarry near a spent fuel canister bathed in Cerenkov radiation, you’d receive a lethal dose in seconds. You still wouldn’t glow; you’d just be dead.

Dead is dead, but how long would it take? I know radiation causes cancer and other lethal mutations of cells. But is there a dose which, as opposed to a drawn-out death by disease would indeed kill instantly? Or within a really short period of time?


Brian O’Neill
CMC International Records
http://www.cmcinternational.com

ICQ# 35294890
AIM Scrabble1

If you were to tarry near a spent fuel canister bathed in Cerenkov radiation, you’d receive a lethal dose in seconds. You still wouldn’t glow; you’d just be dead.

Dead is dead, but how long would it take? I know radiation causes cancer and other lethal mutations of cells. But is there a dose which, as opposed to a drawn-out death by disease would indeed kill instantly? Or within a really short period of time?


Brian O’Neill
CMC International Records
http://www.cmcinternational.com

ICQ# 35294890
AIM Scrabble1

[[Dead is dead, but how long would it take? I know radiation causes cancer and
other lethal mutations of cells. But is there a dose which, as opposed to a
drawn-out death by disease would indeed kill instantly? Or within a really short
period of time?]] -Satan

Yeap, just stand 100 yards from a hydrogen bomb for the instant (Well, close enough to instant.) death. :slight_smile: I believe that some of the survivors of Hiroshima’s / Nagasaki’s initial blast died of the radiation burns in the few hours after. The problem here is did they die of radation, or of the wounds caused by the burns. Moot point really, is a painfull way to go.

TheDude, Thanks! I knew I was wrong on the specifics, been too long since I read up on that stuff.


The drake watches

Actually Cecil you are wrong concerning that eerie blue glow that comes from fuel rods under the water. It is in fact that the water is boronated to absorb radiation. Boronated water is deep blue colored.

Narile,
No problem. The only reason I remember that stuff is because I’m still in school and probably will be forever.
Webb,
Actually, “boronated water”, which I’m presuming is water with boron compounds in it, would be totally colorless. It is true that if you burn boron containing compounds, they burn with a bright green glow, but the compounds are all colorless under normal conditions.
Questioning the authority of Cecil!? How presumptuous.

TheDude