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>Just have a "committed to the cause" person just carry something like this around as they tour the city. Please don't fear-monger; the impact of radiation on

by RC_ITR 4y ago

>Just have a "committed to the cause" person just carry something like this around as they tour the city. Please don't fear-monger; the impact of radiation on the human body is cumulative and the inverse square law makes it hard for any point source to have a ton of impact (particularly with how much attenuating concrete and metal exists in cities). A person walking around a city with a Cs-137 capsule would emit a very dangerous field around themselves, but the impact would be very localized and require long exposure times for there to be a meaningful impact. Your scenario would primarily be a confusing suicide mission, where maybe a random assortment of people would have elevated cancer levels in future years. Hell, even the guy next to Slotin at the Demon core criticality survived 20+ years (before dying of a heart attack)[0] The most deadly disasters are the ones where a radioactivity source is in one place for a long time and people interact closely with it, frequently (usually because they don't know it is there). Take the Goiânia accident [1] as an example. Only the scrapyard employees who spent a few days with the capsule ended up dying. Other people with shorter interaction times were fine. Or take the Kramatorsk Accident [2], only the families in the apartment died of leukemia, despite it being a full building. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_C._Graves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_C._Graves [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramatorsk_radiological_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramatorsk_radiological_accide...

dylan604 4y ago
If you took this seriously after Silent But Deadly to come away with I'm trying to practice fear mongering, "well, boy, I don't know." We have so many movie/book plots, that this is exactly how they start. Someone reads something, and then just plays with the idea. I'm not a writer, so it's not like I'm ever going to use the idea. But who knows, maybe somebody else reads and turns it into a good idea. We can still have fun in this world even with deputy downers like you ruining for everyone "because it's not accurate".
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
KennyBlanken 4y ago
Aside from both incidents happening in countries not particularly well known for long-term follow-up on the consequences of failures by the state...law of inverse squares is what saved a lot of people in these incidents. The source wasn't actually that close to them. In a dense city, a hypothetical terrorist probably wouldn't have to work too hard to get around this. Some radiotherapy sources are stamped "DROP AND RUN." If you're able to read that, by the time you've read it, you're already in deep dogshit. The levels of radiation involved cause near instant cell death and odd sensations due to, well, the frying of the nervous system. You might live - but The impact wouldn't be that high in terms of people injured/killed. The real impact would be on the public psyche, as well disruption of the health system when people showed up in ERs and doctors offices thinking they were exposed, clogging those systems for care of other patients. In that sense, as a terror attack, it would be highly successful. It's really bizarre seeing a bunch of HNers downplaying how serious these sorts of incidents are. We're very lucky that the lost sources have never ended up in the hands of anyone but non-malicious actors. Now 'bad' people are far more aware of them...
- RC_ITR 4y ago
  >side from both incidents happening in countries not particularly well known for long-term follow-up on the consequences of failures by the state Journalists followed the other people. We know their names. We have evidence of them dying for other reasons later on (unless you want to get into Damar Hamlin clone territory) >law of inverse squares is what saved a lot of people in these incidents. The source wasn't actually that close to them. In a dense city, a hypothetical terrorist probably wouldn't have to work too hard to get around this. The law of inverse squares is extremely hard to get around. The amount of radiation 10 feet away from the capsule is only 1% of the radiation 1 foot away from the capsule. That's the whole point I'm trying to make. I don't know how 'in a dense city' overcomes that law of physics. >Some radiotherapy sources are stamped "DROP AND RUN." Yes, and if you're even a few feet away or on the other side of attenuating matter, you're in much less trouble (See: Alvin Graves). >The impact wouldn't be that high in terms of people injured/killed. The real impact would be on the public psyche, as well disruption of the health system when people showed up in ERs and doctors offices thinking they were exposed, clogging those systems for care of other patients. In that sense, as a terror attack, it would be highly successful. Sure, but then what's the point of even doing it vs. just saying you had? And again, aren't I doing exactly what you should want by telling people that their risk in this scenario is basically zero? >It's really bizarre seeing a bunch of HNers downplaying how serious these sorts of incidents are. We're very lucky that the lost sources have never ended up in the hands of anyone but non-malicious actors. Now 'bad' people are far more aware of them... I'm really waiting for the explanation of how these bad actors get over the inverse square law...

by RC_ITR 4y ago

dylan604 4y ago

If you took this seriously after Silent But Deadly to come away with I'm trying to practice fear mongering, "well, boy, I don't know." We have so many movie/book plots, that this is exactly how they start. Someone reads something, and then just plays with the idea. I'm not a writer, so it's not like I'm ever going to use the idea. But who knows, maybe somebody else reads and turns it into a good idea. We can still have fun in this world even with deputy downers like you ruining for everyone "because it's not accurate".

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

KennyBlanken 4y ago

Aside from both incidents happening in countries not particularly well known for long-term follow-up on the consequences of failures by the state...law of inverse squares is what saved a lot of people in these incidents. The source wasn't actually that close to them. In a dense city, a hypothetical terrorist probably wouldn't have to work too hard to get around this. Some radiotherapy sources are stamped "DROP AND RUN." If you're able to read that, by the time you've read it, you're already in deep dogshit. The levels of radiation involved cause near instant cell death and odd sensations due to, well, the frying of the nervous system. You might live - but The impact wouldn't be that high in terms of people injured/killed. The real impact would be on the public psyche, as well disruption of the health system when people showed up in ERs and doctors offices thinking they were exposed, clogging those systems for care of other patients. In that sense, as a terror attack, it would be highly successful. It's really bizarre seeing a bunch of HNers downplaying how serious these sorts of incidents are. We're very lucky that the lost sources have never ended up in the hands of anyone but non-malicious actors. Now 'bad' people are far more aware of them...

RC_ITR 4y ago
>side from both incidents happening in countries not particularly well known for long-term follow-up on the consequences of failures by the state Journalists followed the other people. We know their names. We have evidence of them dying for other reasons later on (unless you want to get into Damar Hamlin clone territory) >law of inverse squares is what saved a lot of people in these incidents. The source wasn't actually that close to them. In a dense city, a hypothetical terrorist probably wouldn't have to work too hard to get around this. The law of inverse squares is extremely hard to get around. The amount of radiation 10 feet away from the capsule is only 1% of the radiation 1 foot away from the capsule. That's the whole point I'm trying to make. I don't know how 'in a dense city' overcomes that law of physics. >Some radiotherapy sources are stamped "DROP AND RUN." Yes, and if you're even a few feet away or on the other side of attenuating matter, you're in much less trouble (See: Alvin Graves). >The impact wouldn't be that high in terms of people injured/killed. The real impact would be on the public psyche, as well disruption of the health system when people showed up in ERs and doctors offices thinking they were exposed, clogging those systems for care of other patients. In that sense, as a terror attack, it would be highly successful. Sure, but then what's the point of even doing it vs. just saying you had? And again, aren't I doing exactly what you should want by telling people that their risk in this scenario is basically zero? >It's really bizarre seeing a bunch of HNers downplaying how serious these sorts of incidents are. We're very lucky that the lost sources have never ended up in the hands of anyone but non-malicious actors. Now 'bad' people are far more aware of them... I'm really waiting for the explanation of how these bad actors get over the inverse square law...