Re: Meanwhile, back in the lab...
- From: Uncle Al <UncleAl0@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 19:22:46 -0700
"Gregory L. Hansen" wrote:
>
> In our last episode, a neutron guide at NIST broke from radiation damage,
> sending a chunk of glass through the magnesium window and destroying my
> monochrometer.
Did you buy it with your American Expres card? If it breaks they'll
replace it.
> The guide had been fixed weeks ago, the monochrometer recently replaced
> and the shielding moved back in, allowing me access to that liquid
> nitrogen dewar that had been blocked in for a month. I've adjusted the
> rotation and tilt angles of the monochrometer to maximize flux, and now
> I'm trying to take a beam picture to see what it looks like.
Hot flash from President Bush the Lesser! A Pentagon faith-based
intiative consultant has been dispatched!
http://photos1.blogger.com/img/200/1549/320/retard.jpg
> We have a wonderful imaging plate that's loaded with lithium-6; expose it
> directly to the beam and read it out in the BAS-2000. So I built a jig to
> hold it, brought Health Physics in to check the setup, gave it a 30 second
> exposure, and brought it to Building 245 to read it. And found out the
> BAS-2000 had been broken for some time, and there's no plans to fix or
> replace it. So I tried reading it on the BAS-1800II, but that only
> accepts magnetic plates, and this one isn't magnetic.
Indium foil, then apply to a distaff staffer's back. Check out the
reddened areas the next day.
> Plan B was to use dysprosium foil, which activates in neutrons and emits
> betas with a half life of a few hours. Except our dysprosium foil is
> small, and I wanted a larger picture. And big peices of dysprosium are
> another one of those things you don't just buy at Staples.
Lowes. They've got a hot summer lanthanide aisle. The praseodymium
oxide is green!
> Plan C is to activate a copper plate which we happened to have laying
> around. That has a smaller capture cross-section and the isotope of
> interest has a half-life of 13 hours, which translates to a whopping
> exposure to get something useful. The reactor was down Monday and
> Tuesday.
Paxil; maybe a shielding rub and a split of champagne.
> So I was ready to expose it today, after the talk by our guest speaker.
> But Health Physics had some concerns about the amount of radioactive
> material to be transported, and where it will be kept. And then they
> disappeared for a while. Turns out they were trying to figure out how
> many prompt gammas would be created. I don't think there'll be any, I got
> some ENDF data that seemed to say no prompt gammas until 100 keV, and my
> neutrons are little meV. And with hours to expose, wait out some
> short-lived products, and transfer to an imaging plate, it just got late.
> So we'll try it again tomorrow.
Diversity grade school kids, pennies, wooden frame. Promise to send
the completed experiment up to ISS FUBAR in the Space Scuttle. (Lock
the door to the reactor core.)
> And science marches on. Sort of.
>
> Nothing unusual, just another day in the lab.
If we knew what we were doing it wouldn't be research. It would be
hate language discriminating against the lame and pious. Why aren't
you folks irradiating bottles of food poppy seeds and planting them in
the common areas?
--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz.pdf
.
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