Hello, all,
Thanks to Jones and Keith for the supportive tech
suggestions.
First to address Jones' question re: the non-absorbing
D2O. I was able to save a small amount - maybe 1 ml
tops in a nalgene bottle with a good sealing lid. I
checked it about a week ago, and it still SEEMS to
have the same property, just not a whole lot of it to
do much with, and it has labfloor crud in it. When I
get back to it, I will need to just keep a lot more
watchful eye on the solution physical properties.
Also a very worthwhile notion is the use of a
hypodermic needle as cathode. This excites me. I'm
going to put this one up there at the front of the
list, once I get back on this particular project.
Which will probably be a couple of weeks yet, at
least. I have to multiplex between about 4 different
avocational diversions, plus I need to hit up my heavy
water connection for another fix, and order some more
K2CO3.
Outside of Vort, a couple of suggestions have come in
regarding some added variables, most notably the use
of a red laser beam to illuminate the cathode and the
idea of pulsing the applied power.
Keith's comment about neutron detection is germane.
The set up I have is pretty flippin' crude, and
probably the most crude of all is my knowledge of just
WHAT TYPES of neutrons I am (theoretically) supposed
to be looking for. Rousy empiricist/experimentalist
that I am. If I could cough up an old 1964 silver US
dime, I could stick it in front of the GM tube, ala
the Oak Ridge souvenir machine :) Seriously though,
as neutron detection goes, I am in Kindergarten. Keep
any good ideas coming, please.
Thanks to all for their input!
NR
--- Jones Beene <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> --- Keith Nagel wrote:
>
> > Can you calibrate the neutron detector? It's
> > important to
> > set some kind of limits for the ( so far it seems
> )
> > null results. Perhaps someone can loan you a cup
> > of neutrons to test with....
>
> Rather than null, I would say incomplete. Let's take
> the contrarian (and optimistic viewpoint) that there
> have been some neutrons but they are extremely low
> energy "stirpping" neutrons.
>
> There is no way they are going to get out of that
> much
> heavy water, but with the approx 15 min decay time,
> they can still be found long after the cell is shut
> off. This has the distinct triple advantage of
> allowing a detector to be placed in the cell itself,
> plus it eliminates almost all other possibilities,
> plus since it is now beta decay (albeit low energy)
> and it allows much more flexibility in the kind of
> detector, plastic scintillator or film, even a
> photography light meter could be rigged up. The
> traditional CD geiger counter won't work however.
>
>
> > BTW, is Bounty even _rated_ for heavy water
> spills?
>
> I have it on good authority that Rosie says the
> quicker-picker-upper can sop up any yellow liquid in
> 30 seconds; so if it is resisting, you know what to
> do...
>
> Jones
>
>
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