"Do not try to seem wise to others. If you want to live a wise life, live it on your own terms and in your own eyes." - Epictetus
Back in 2013, I wrote a brief post about the very first nuclear reactor, CP-1. "CP-1" was war-time jargon to hide the nature of the experiment. It stood for Chicago Pile #1, and it was in fact a stack of graphite blocks and uranium tubes - a "pile" of graphite.
The reactor briefly went critical on December 2, 1942 - confirming that a self-sustaining nuclear reaction could be achieved. For this reason, it was a significant event in the history of mankind's understanding and mastery of nuclear science.
I was scanning through online auctions the other day, as I often do. I'm always hoping to find interesting stuff that I can afford. I came across this:
One of the graphite blocks from the original CP-1 reactor pile! How cool is that! It's encased in either a plastic or glass block - possibly to reduce exposure to residual beta and gamma radiation - or maybe just to keep the graphite from getting scuffed. Either way, it's really cool, with the pertinent information etched onto the surface.
So I thought to myself, "I'm the only guy I know of who might have an interest in this sort of thing as a trinket to go in the office. Maybe I should bid on it." When I first saw it, the auction was already at $300, and well over anything I was going to bid.
I won't keep you waiting on how much this little historic piece of graphite sold for. Quite a bit more than I would have been willing to part with.
2 comments:
Ok, I know basically nothing about nuclear science, but am surprised this can be legally sold if there's even a remote chance it could emit any sort of radiation. Could it possibly be misused, or something sinister. Guess it's obvious I do not know much about it. I do know one other person who might enjoy seeing it, and suspect he had the same job you did in the Navy.
Hi Marc,
Residual radiation from this chunk of carbon would be pretty minor after all these years, I would imagine.
There are a number of factors that determine how nasty the long-term radioactivity is for something that's been exposed to neutrons in a reactor.
1) Length of time it was exposed to neutrons. This reactor only ran half an hour
2) Power level. This reactor was super low-power, so there weren't a lot of neutrons.
3) The material exposed to neutrons - carbon doesn't readily capture neutrons, so it doesn't easily become radioactive.
4) Distance from the peak neutron population - a graphite block on the outside of the pile would probably not see many neutrons at all.
So, probably very little danger - certainly less than the radioactive FiestaWare dishes that I made a different post about.
Also the blue topaz gemstones that you find everywhere have been cooked in a reactor to give them that blue color. They have to "cool off" for many months before being released to the public. But as always with these things, radioactivity drops off below the legal threshold, without ever really reaching zero.
Post a Comment