I owned one of those. I was nine years old. It came in a huge (nine-year-old huge) red suitcase with everything carefully packed. My dad's best high-school buddy and his wife had no kids, so they became godparents to my sisters and me. They gave me the set.
It was amazing to look through the spinthariscope at the different kinds of scintillations from the different radiation sources. I even got the cloud chamber to work a little -- it was tricky. But the Geiger counter, now THAT was a lot of fun. I took it all over the house looking for things that made it tick. All was quiet until I got into the kitchen. Then it became one of those "You're getting warmer... now you're getting colder" games. I got near one section of counter and suddenly it got hot. I looked through the drawers with my counter ticking faster and faster. Then it went wild. I pulled out some dishes, and one of them was spitting radiation like crazy. It far outstripped the gamma source from the kit in its intensity. I was so excited I called to my mother, who was mostly amused. My father, when he got home, smiled. I was a little frustrated. The plate, a lovely ceramic platter my parents used for serving snacks and desserts, was glazed a bright shade of orange. From then on it was known as "the radioactive plate". None of us knew why, and we kept using it. Radiation in the 1950s was more of a curiosity than a threat, except of course if the Reds had it. The plate stayed in my mother's house until she died last year. Many well-presented foodstuffs passed through its glow and were eaten by family, friends, and guests. The kit fell victim to childhood wear, tear, and breakage, and finally ended up being tossed out. I regret that loss, along with the loss of Lionel trains and other things of the time that now would fetch a lot of attention. A few years ago I finally did the Web research and found Fiesta ware, which had those brilliant reds and oranges and yellows in the glaze. The colors came from uranium oxides, normally found in ore but also made available from the tailings at the uranium refineries producing bomb-grade U-235. The tailings were supposed to be low in radioactivity. Eventually the government clamped down, and use of the tailings was... curtailed. A good thing, no doubt. The family plate, purchased in the 1940s, wasn't Fiesta ware by its brand name, which I now forget. That made me a bit more suspicious that perhaps its glaze contained radioactive tailings from one of those refineries. And without my trusty Gilbert Atomic Energy Lab, I would never have had this story to tell. SteveC wrote: > I'm definitely going back in time and suing my parents for never > buying me the Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab. > http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/atomictoys/GilbertU238Lab.htm > > >>> The set came with four types of uranium ore, a beta-alpha source (Pb-210), >>> a pure beta source (Ru-106), a gamma source (Zn-65?), a spinthariscope, a >>> cloud chamber with its own short-lived alpha source (Po-210), an >>> electroscope, a geiger counter, a manual, a comic book (Dagwood Splits the >>> Atom) and a government manual "Prospecting for Uranium." >>> > > Click on the Atomic Toys link for more great relics of the Atomic Age. > Turns out that this is from the Oak Ridge Museum. > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
