I wonder what that is? How come the digits don't show the same burn that the
hands do? They certainly remained in the same position for longer than the
hands.
Hmmm?
Tom
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chuck Harris" <[email protected]>
To: "Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement"
<[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2013 3:41 PM
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] How dangerous if a Rb lamp broken?
The dials of most of the old "radium" dial watches have burns in them
caused by the hands being parked for long periods of time as the watch
invariably failed and stopped. The crystals are similarly "etched"
from their exposure. The gamma photons did the deed...
I have one such watch that was given to me by an uncle who was a physicist
and was part of the Marshal Island H-Bomb tests. He was given the watch
by
the US Army, and wore it daily until it set off the alarms on one of the
experiments he was working on.... After that, it sat on a shelf for 20
years
before being given to me. No burns when it was put away, and a very
distinct burn after sitting 20 years.
So, yes, it would burn you, but at the rate that gamma comes off of a
watch dial, it would take a long time, and your body would have naturally
replaced the cells many times over the duration of the burn.
-Chuck Harris
Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:
In message <5DEED07BE9DE486C9E668636A2949A62@BACKROOM>, "Max Robinson"
writes:
I once read that if you were to wear a radium dial watch face down you
would
get a radiation burn on your arm. I wonder who would do such a thing.
I
also wonder if the writer knew what he was writing about or if he was
just
speculating.
You would.
He did.
_______________________________________________
time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected]
To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
and follow the instructions there.
