3 ms·
It's the scary goldilocks of nuclear waste. On the one extreme, you have the Elephant Foot at Chernobyl, which even today will kill you if you, like, go up and
by saalweachter 4y ago
It's the scary goldilocks of nuclear waste.
On the one extreme, you have the Elephant Foot at Chernobyl, which even today will kill you if you, like, go up and lick it. But it's not going to sneak up behind you, so just don't go over there.
On the other extreme you have the release of radioactive water from Fukushima, which instantly dilutes to nothing in the vastness of the ocean. Meh.
In the middle, you have radiation sources like this, which are small enough to be unnoticed and highly mobile, but clumpy enough to still kill you dead if you get too close. Unless you have a radiation detector, you could step on one on your way home today and never know it.
Scary!
- marcosdumay 4y ago> and never know it. Nah... You will know it quite soon.
- NotYourLawyer 4y agoThere’s another scary Goldilocks aspect too, which is what I thought your comment was going to be about when I started reading it. Stuff with a really short half life is horribly radioactive, but not for long. Stuff with a half life of millions of years sticks around forever, but it’s not throwing off that much radiation. But stuff in the middle (a half life of perhaps decades to a thousand years) can be very dangerous and remain that way for a long time.
- eternityforest 4y agoI wish phones had radiation detectors(Aside from camera based ones that aren't accurate and use battery). If 100M people had radiation detection, I'm sure we'd get a few hits every once in a while. Plus it can probably be done in roughly a headphone jack sized spot.
- fomine3 4y agoI just remembered it exists in 2012. https://www.softbank.jp/support/faq/view/11235 https://www.softbank.jp/support/faq/view/11235 http://k-tai.sharp.co.jp/support/s/205sh/r_attention.html http://k-tai.sharp.co.jp/support/s/205sh/r_attention.html