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A kitchen countertop consisting of a slab of naturally radioactive rock (such as granite) overlaid with a layer of a transparent scintillator material (e.g. zinc sulphide ) and then a layer of tempered glass.
In normal light, looks like a regular polished granite worktop.
In the dark, it shows
the billions of tiny flashes of light from alpha particles.
That is all.
[link]
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And this is visible to the naked eye you say? Any
videos of this effect in effect? |
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Put this on ceiling tiles that would sparkle at night if
so. |
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Maybe, a type of conversation table adding entertainment to meals. |
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Why not. Tables are boring, and we lack transparency about radioactivity
of materials. Can that scintilayer be on other stuff, so we are not blind to
radiation? |
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Hmm. I think you'd struggle to see anything, even in a dark
room. Back in the day, before scintillation counters,
scientists would mix in a liquid scintillant and then go and sit
in a completely lightless room with their sample for about half
an hour, until they were dark-adapted enough to count the
scintillae. |
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An added, charged plasma layer? |
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When someone says something subtle, it is hard to know if it sparks or not. [8th of 7] Are you trying to move conversation into the kitchen? |
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This is a noble idea, but the flashes of light are extremely dim. You have about as much chance of seeing it as you have seeing triboluminescence by naked eye. |
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I would suggest fitting a refrigeration system with cooling pipes directly underneath the granite worktop. When a hot and/or alcoholic drink is placed on the surface, the condensing vapour will have the occasional streak of a charged particle passing through. Still a subtle effect to watch for, but one that can be seen with relative ease. |
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Excellent title by the way. |
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Tabletop cloud chambers are Baked; there is (or there was) one at the Science Centre in Toronto. |
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you'll always find me in the kitchen at parties... |
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If the events are a little weak, perhaps a more energetic
emitter could be selected? |
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No, he died back in 2014. You can't have a H.R. Giger
counter. |
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Although, you could build a GM-tube counter. By unrolling
the tube design and having the top surface as the anode
made transparent, either a fine mesh or a super thin foil.
Then you need a fluorescent coating and the original
ionization event is amplified ~million fold or so. Maybe you
could get some tune-ability by tweaking the voltage... hook
it up to an audio feed? |
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What you're describing is in effect an image intensifier/photomultiplier. |
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Plutonium isotopes are profligate alpha emitters.That would do nicely. |
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Sturton used to scintillate. Nowadays, he can only do it til
about six thirty. |
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if you could put it in some sort of partially-mirrored chamber, you might
be able to get some light amplification by spontaneous emission of
radiation |
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// top surface as the anode made transparent, either a fine
mesh or a super thin foil // |
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Tempered glass coated with ITO? The only issue could be
that the arc could blow holes in the coating. Maybe limiting
the arc current with a resistor would solve that. |
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Scintillate scintillate microscopic celestial body... [+] |
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A variation on the cloud chamber idea would be a bubble
chamber filled with a fluid that is supercritical at room
temperature. |
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Everyone's favourite supercritical fluid, carbon dioxide,
apparently doesn't work as a bubble chamber fluid because it is a non-polar molecule.
But there are a few polar molecules that form a supercritical
fluid at slightly above room temperature. For example
nitrous oxide (N2O) is a supercritical at 33°C at a pressure of
72.5 atmospheres. |
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A single large flat chamber covering the countertop would
be impractical to keep at such high pressure. Instead an
array of small flat glass chambers containing supercritical
fluid could be practical. Each chamber would be illuminated
from the side so the bubbles could be seen more easily. |
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Does it double up as a sun-bed? |
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