Science Memes

11161 readers

2784 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.

Rules

Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
Keep it rooted (on topic).
No spam.
Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.

Research Committee

[email protected]

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

559

Radioactivity (mander.xyz)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

61 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (1 children)

They're contaminated, not neutron activated. The curies didn't get to the point of developing an unshielded nuclear reactor that would sufficiently neutron activate their stuff. They just liked to carry around radium and polonium which also have decay products that themselves are radioactive and they contaminated everything.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for the precision. Still, the result is the same I'm sure.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

More or less. The difference is that, if they really wanted to, they could very thoroughly clean the notebook and take most of the contamination off. I’m guessing they won’t because a) It’s a historical artifact and they don’t want to risk damaging it, b) the contamination is so low-level that it’s not dangerous as long as you don’t lick it or something, and/or c) there’s a bit of a shock factor in watching a scientist’s notebook make a Geiger counter freak out.