At 09:56 AM 4/1/03 -0500, Tyler Durden wrote: >Here's a story about a kid who basically made a duct-tape and tin foil >reactor. Or almost. If it's a hoax, its a pretty good one. > > >http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html
What he did was replicate some experiments from the turn of the (last) century, using the Be (or Al, but Be is better) + alpha -> neutron reaction, then used the neutron flux to activate fissile and fertile materials (as well as everything around him), discovering n cross sections and moderation in the process. Chadwick to Fermi. If you get quantitative, you can see that he obtained an extraordinary amount of hot material to start with. A millicurie of Am-241 (1000 smoke detectors), and then the Ra in the paint. Maybe an oz of paint, you use maybe 1/1000 part Ra salt to 1000 parts ZnS, that's about 28 millicuries of Ra. Plus his little metallic reduction efforts concentrated things nicely. ... Marie Curie's lab notebooks are kept in lead boxes.
