My vintage vacuum tubes are radio-active!
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- Опубликовано: 2 ноя 2024
- I didn't know but my beautiful vintage power vacuum tubes have uranium glass in them! But how radio active are they? Which is a great excuse to look at Bob's retro Geiger counter collection to find out.
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I used to do uranium chemistry, many years against. There are several things too think about here.
1. Much uranium since the war is depleted, this means it has much less (1/3) u-235 and u-234 the stronger alpha emitters and ~ only 60% of the radioactivity of natural uranium. So most uranium in use outside power stations is mostly u-238
2. The radiation you picked up will be from decay products u-235/u-234 -> th-234 + alpha and all the way down from there to Pb-206 its alpha and beta decay along with weak gamma emission
3. Alpha particles are bare atomic He nuclei without electrons and are dense enough that they wont go through anything much (even a sheet of paper or a small air gap is quite a big barrier)
4. However direct contact of your tissues with an alpha emitter (ie object to skin) for long periods is bad because all the radioactivity gets dumped in a very small region (read cancer). This is why breathing in insoluble uranium compounds as dusts is really bad.
5. Have you looked the smoke detector in you lab it may well have americium in it which is a reasonable alpha emitter but some plastic metal and air reduce exposure to basically nothing
6. Uranium is quite chemically toxic, its a heavy metals poison like mercury and lead
So don’t hold the tube by the uranium part while you sleep, don’t cut it up and keep it in a cardboard box !
Shouldn't you handle it with rubber gloves too?
@@commodoresixfour7478 Not really. I've got some uranium glass crystal beads, and they're poor enough alpha emitters that you'd have to be holding onto them for hours and hours, maybe even days, at a time for it to ever be a problem. It's why these aren't in a piece of jewelry anymore, not a great idea to be wearing them against your skin for a long time. Maybe wash your hands if you handle the actual uranium glass for an extended period, definitely DON'T put it in your mouth.
That the uranium is (literally) vitrified though makes it in the safest form possible. Even if dropped and broken it would be pretty hard to ingest significant amounts of it.
the uranium glass should be contained completely within the tube by the looks of it, maybe it was used because molten uranium glass wets better to wire than normal glass
I did used to wear gloves when doing the uranium chemistry
The uranium was used to color ceramic glaze orange, some old orange plates will make a geiger counter really act up. Remember, we ate off these plates for decades and it didn't seem to bother us.
Also the glass elements in some camera lenses were made of thorium glass, and will set off a geiger counter. My Canon FD lens does if the rear element is held next to the probe.
Looks like you found Doc Browns tube supplier.
Marc you needn't worry about those tubes, alpha rays are generally harmless (I wouldn't, like, sleep with the tube) because they can't pierce your skin. You have to eat the source (or otherwise internalize it) to be injured by alpha rays. That's why those detectors weren't telling you about them, detecting alpha rays makes you go "Oh, neat, there's alpha rays here, I wonder why?" but finding gamma rays makes you go "Oh shit it's time to leave!"
*Can't get ALL the way through your skin to the tissues below, will still get deep enough to cause damage to the dividing skin cells (50 microns or so) similar to ultraviolet light from the sun.
Alpha particles. They might be blocked by a sheet of paper, but paper is actually quite thick, thicker than skin- 80gsm paper works out neatly to the equivalent of 80microns of water- far thicker than your skin
So not innocuous if you're holding it, but the content of uranium is typically low, and it's not a particularly strong emitter, as well as the emission being primarily from the surface, so yes, relatively safe assuming you're not sleeping with it :D.
@@AngDavies alpha doesn't even go through the glass. And yeah basically just doesn't go through the skin. I studied applied physics. I used to work with these kind of things all the time. People make this a lot more dramatic than it needs to be.
Sounds like Soviet propaganda to me.
@Povenator than you're talking about having it right on the skin. Even than the effect is extremely minimal. The absorption in air is even pretty significant
@@p_mouse8676 that's why I mentioned surface- the dose will be much reduced because the inside will not radiate, but the surface has a relatively unobstructed path.
Even being a centimetre or so away in air would be enough to block the particles.
I just thought it important to draw the distinction because of a particularly dangerous brand of woo that's surfaced recently involving strapping bracelets containing high amounts of thorium dioxide to your skin and wearing them day in day out...that's totally still gonna give you cancer and needs to go die in a fire fast, as far as I'm concerned. I don't actually seriously think Marc is going to come to harm :)
(RUclips thought emporium for a bigger video on it)
I have a rather large (.5Kg) chunk of uranium glass sitting on a shelf here in my office. It only really triggers my Geiger counter when the probe is within 30cm or so. That said, I also have an orange-glazed Fiestaware coffee cup that really sets off the Geiger counter- way more than the uranium glass does. It's crazy to imagine that people actually had entire sets of orange Fiestaware in their cupboards, all stacked together! Talk about getting hot in the kitchen!
The uranium glass is used to transition between glasses and metal of different coefficients of expansion (COE). If there wasn't a transitional glass used the glass/metal seal would crack.
Uranium glass is very slightly radioactive emitting mostly alpha and low energy beta and since is vitrified it's almost harmless.
The x-rays from driving them with too high of a voltage can be more dangerous.
The more modern Geiger counter that was used, the one with the flat round probe (which because of that shape is called pancake probe) is indeed sensitive to alpha particles because has a thing mica window to let them in.
In this case it didn't register much because you where measuring the glass at a distance and at least partially shielded by other glass.
In any case even if you had it fully exposed it would've been fine since, being glass, it's also very unlikely to flake or leach Uranium when handled.
I would make a nice display mount for them with UV leds in the cabinet so you can properly highlight them when showing them off.
Anyway I wanted to add that the fact that when even a science and technology inclined person like you gets a bit freaked out hearing about having something radioactive on his hands is a testament on how damaging the anti-nuclear propaganda was and how easily the misinformation and exaggeration of the dangerousness of anything even barely radioactive got rooted in the general public. Mind you I'm not faulting you in any way shape or form, I think you're awesome.
Except that the manufacturer of the altimeter had people paint the dial by hand without gloves and in some cases they used their tongue to form the tip.
@@TheStefanskoglund1 I'm very familiar with the awful story of the radium girls, but what's your point?
I think you are exaggerating when you said anti-nuclear propaganda. The anti-nuclear people are a very small percentage of the population, and are not a significant source.
Wow, never knew uranium glass was used in anything other than nice looking candy trays and cups
That's funny... I was watching an old video from Ron Soyland this morning.... where he was making a tiny X Ray tube using uranium glass....... and here is your friend checking uranium glass with a geiger counter with tiny tubes........
Fun fact: all the Helium on earth are the result of alpha decay (alpha particule is a He4). All the primordial He3 have escaped from the atmosphere.
Not that much fun, but yet very interesting to know
I didn't know that- very interesting factoid- thanks!
It's why helium is often found with natural gas as it was discovered by someone finding a gas well that would not burn because there was too much helium in it.
Glad you mentioned NileReds video. It's a great companion piece to the video and one of the best science channels!
Stay safe also!
I asked a friend of mine who is retired Eimac applications engineer about the uranium glass. He confirmed that uranium glass wss used to provide the best possible seal on the Kovar wires. Great video as always and I love the variety of topics.
Yikes! I have at least two of the big tubes tested here, plus a bunch of others. No wonder those guys were happy to give them to me. I should have known it was a mistake to sleep with them under my pillow. But I love them so.
If the glass broke on tubes, they might be a bit hotter. The flat pancake probe was one that was designed for alphas.
Your tubes also have thoriated tungsten filament cathodes...
Yummy! I did not know either.
I've got some TIG welding tips with thoriated tungsten that people grind to sharpen, yet people breath in the dust. I don't think old welders know about it, because I didn't know when I did some TIG welding in the 70s.
@@SidneyCritic Yes, as i remember it may be up to around 2% actualy (only the brown ones, the green ones for aluminium is pure tungsten), same with the coating in MMA electrodes, i try to wet grind if i can, but i always ues the old betty angler before, no idea if it will shorten my lifespan or not, time will tell i suppose...
All vacuum tubes contain thorium to some degree. Either the filament as in a 5U4, 5Y3 or indirectly heated cathode vacuum tube like a 6X4, 6X5, 6CA4 etc.
As so do 6L6 and 6550 power vacuum tubes.
The Pentax cameras made up to the early 70s with the 55mm normal lenses are also quite interesting. The rear element of the lens has a sizable proportion of thorium oxide in it since the thorium has a very high refractive index and makes for a more powerful lens. It also drives my Geiger counter crazy.
Geiger counter number 2 looks great: vacuum tubes, transistors AND an early IC.... all the technologies in one!
Like Decca Bradford Chassis TVs from the early 1970s.
I handled depleted uranium when I was in the Army, in 120mm tank shells. I recall an instructor running a Geiger counter over the penetrator, showing us that it was barely radioactive. As another commenter pointed out, the danger from APFSDU rounds isn't radioactivity, it's heavy metal poisoning from the dust.
I think the big danger is when your armoured vehicle is hit with one. :-)
If there is such a thing as steampunk, then this is radiopunk (roots). Love those valves! Gimme gimme!
There were decorative tableware made of this uranium glass, it was a common thing in the 1920's. It's beautifully fluorecent and barely radioactive.
I have a sugar bowl and lamp shade made of uranium/Vaseline glass Love the glow under UV. Gives me about 3 times background with my beta/gamma scintillator probe right next to it. Not very dangerous compared to a smoke detector foil which is a strong enough Alpha emitter that it registers well on the Beta probe when in contact but drops off in a couple of mm.
At 4:35, the top row of panels, just to the right of the blue panel is the front panel for a Systems Engineering 32 bit super-mini computer. I started my career on these machines as first a computer operator and then a programmer (ultimately I worked on the MPX-32 operating system on these). It was really exciting to see after so many years! Thank you Marc! I should also mention that my wife collects antique glass and we have one case that contains glassware made from uranium glass (drinking glasses, wine glasses, etc.). This is also called Vaseline glass by the way. It all emits alpha particles so we keep it behind glass. The case has a black light in it which is pretty spectacular when you use it to light up the glass.
How can I get in touch with the guy doing the tube testing? I'm planning a large induction heater build.
One of the commenters below knows him. Malek Davarpanah
They used to use uranium as the coloring on Fiestaware plates (the yellow or orange ones.) As mentioned uranium is primarily an alpha-emitter so as long as you don't smash up that glass and inhale the dust, you should be fine.
Wow, just went through my big valve collection. Only two old thyratrons with uranium glass content but dose is much lower than can be found in Vaseline in charity shops.
Nilered is awesome. And so are you. Thanks for the great video.
They are part of the real RUclips content creators, so yes, they are awesome.
None of my big tubes glow, but I like to take one of the little UV LED flashlights to antique shops and thrift shops and test likely looking glass items that are usually pale green. Sometimes you can find the Uranium glassware that way. And it is usually very cheap.
I do the same and have my UV LED light mounted in a tiny aluminium capsule as my keyfob. I found a lamp shade that lit up and gives me 3 x background with beta/gamma.
Thorium glass was quite a thing back in the day, from memory, it resulted in a stronger and clearer type of glass with producing less impurities... There are a good number of camera lenses that had some thorium glass elements in them; many late 50s early 60s Pentax lenses and many others. A massive amount of discussions and arguments have been had about how safe these lenses are, and most of the conclusions say 'do not place under your pillow at night, don't gaffertape to your face and/or don't store in your shirt pocket for an extended period of time'! Probably a bit more radioactive than a banana, far less than an old Radium clock dial. Complètement aimer vos vidéos et votre travail, soit dit en passant!
I've got a nice Pentax Super Takumar SLR lens with a thorium coating. Still sets off my modern geiger counter.
Now you have to get a fog chamber to make all the particles flying off visible! :oD
Many larger tubes (mostrly made by Eimac and HEinz & Kaufman) mixed uranium oxide in the glass near the seals, the blend they used had a better adhesion to the metal and had a similar thermal expansion rate, thus preventing air from leaking inside the tubes when they were running hot, and they ran very hot (Eimac recommended to keep the plates of their triodes cherry red, the plates were covered in zirconium wich at high temperature reacts very wel with oxigen and nitrogen thus absorbing any leaked gas, wich otherwise could cause a discharge).
Uranium glass was also used to make kitchenware, marbles, Bottles, Seltz Siphons and so on, it' s harmless but it looks very cool :)
When he said he had those geiger counters for the next war i just lost it hahaha
Used radioactive tubes in the US Navy back in 1982 for radio and radar transmitter equipment. All us Electronics Technicians were instructed on the cleanup procedures in case we dropped a tube and it was broken.
I would also mention that many vacuum tubes include thorium cathodes, which are designed to emit electrons. Thermionic emission is what gives them their function, so it makes sense that they would have some sort of emissions.
Uranium glass is interesting, though. Wonder why they needed that.
The 833-A is my favorite tube to use in a stereo amplifier. It is a musical instrument Stradivari would esteem.
John is very knowledgeable on Tubes testing and manufacturing.Also he is a very good friend of mine.Thank you for the great Video. 73 KI7DYM
Very interesting. I’m reading up on old tube technology. It’s a lot easier to understand than semiconductor electronics. I had never heard of uranium glass. I wonder who came up with that idea. I put up a video about a year ago on early Philbrick tube based op amps that are slightly radioactive. They used a spot of radium paint on the side of neon tubes to start the conduction since they were in a dark case and wouldn’t start otherwise, if I recall correctly. The paint has a significant level of radiation up close, but I measure background levels when more than about a foot away from them. I read that the biggest danger with those would be if the paint were to chip of and somehow be ingested. Most of the beige colored op amps had the radium paint, but the grey colored op amps were clean. It amazes me how readily designers used radioactive materials back then.
Marc,
Regarding radioactive Thorium, do a search on "The Radioactive Boy Scout". His name was David Hahn. He sourced quite a cache of radioactive elements that were found in common household items.
He started very basic, collecting a lot of the non-radioactive chemicals and worked up. His goal: To build a simple breeder reactor in the shed of his back yard. He successfully did, until he became worried about the amount of transient radiation that traveled the length of the back yard and was being detected on his Geiger counter. He was shortly confronted by the EPA, who later dismantled his "laboratory".
It's a fascinating story and such a tragic end to his short life. Funny thing is this all happened a short distance away from where I used to live in Oakland County, Michigan. It's worth watching and finding out what's happened to him since the EPA cleanup. He wasn't a criminal; just a bright young kid who wanted to learn and wanted to change the world.
And he had a severe problem with acne which lead to that unfortunate photo that was always used when the media reported about "the radioactive boy scout". I wonder if this has anything to do with death (drugs+alcohol)...
@@zvpunry1971 His death was due to severe depression brought on because of the authorities assuming what he did was very wrong and terrorist-like. I say, "NO!!!" He was simply a good, good kid LEARNING SOMETHING new that eventually would lead to a successful future. I, personally, fully support people who are ambitious learners like him; people who can change the world and its attitude of what can or can't be done.
Sorry to sound standoff-ish, but when the media or authorities sensationalize the facts to scare people or just to get attention for the click-bait, it makes me angry.
Joe: That is what I have hidden in my comment. The sensationalist media searched for the worst picture of him (severe acne) and made it public. The title "The radioactive boy scout" also suggests that he radioactive. This very likely caused depressions that caused the death.
It is OK that there are limits on some hazardous substances, just imagine your neighbor tries to build a neutron source. Support should mean, that people like him (and everyone else) get good and free (no cost) education.
@@zvpunry1971 Yeah, I was just stating the obvious. :) I'll get off my soapbox now.
If my neighbor did that, I'd be proud of his accomplishments. I would know that the levels are low enough to not cause an immediate threat to one's health. Now, if he was dealing with a 1 Rem source or higher, then I'd be concerned and recommend taking it to a less populated area.
1 Rem (10 mSv) without mentioning a time can be a low or a high value. It is the equivalent of 100000 bananas. If you eat the bananas over a span of 70 years, then it is a manageable amount. If you eat them all at once, you will die a horrible dead. ;)
10 mSv/a (1 Rem/a) is an average yearly dose just from living on a rocky ground. There are places where the natural background is about 1 mSv/a and places where it is up to 50 mSv/a and the people living there don't care. And about 0.4 mSv/a come from your own K-40 content, any additional K-40 from bananas will be excreted and therefore doesn't count (but please don't eat 100000 of them at once!).
If my neighbor would increase my yearly dose by 10 mSv/a (1 Rem/a), I wouldn't be proud of his accomplishments. I wouldn't recommend taking it to a less populated area. It shouldn't even come to such an situation. I'd expect someone who is interested in such experiments to start with learning how to keep things safe, even if this means to be limited to to the experiments in a laboratory in a university.
I knew this already through my own work. However,fascinating video as alway Marc.
Beautiful Valves man!
Thanks very much! Waiting for your next video.
Antique stores and ebay are full of uranium glass vases and bowls. As with the tubes the radiation risk is zilch. People used to wear watches with radium glow paint in the hands. Hundreds of times more radiation than uranium glass.
If the radiation is a safety concern you could put it behind some leaded glass. I have always wondered if the coating on the front of a CRT tube could be washed off. It would be cool to put a tube in a tube if you could make the front of a CRT easy to see through. It would make a cool display and double as shielding.
IIRC,some of the gas filled voltage regulator tubes had a small radioactive source in them too,to help get the gas ionization kick started.
Certain glass mixtures of uranium and other metal salts create a very high melting point and were considered ideal for sealing high wattage vacuum tubes. The mixtures were closer to high temperature ceramic than actual glass.
I was a little surprised that a 50's built device would have transistors, it turns out that the Erbine E500B was released in 1964 which makes more sense.
Have to love those big tubes.
PS: Atomium : (famous build in Belgium) is the representation of iron atom ... ;-)
I was given a pair of eimacs last week that are also uranium glass. I've got a few 833a's too.
Bob, would you adopt me as an apprentice? I just want to spend some time with your collection. Holy cow!
From what I've heard in the past, and this isn't based on any specific knowledge, Uranium glass is relatively safe. Don't sleep with it under your pillow and don't make it into a pretty bedside light display thing that you are going to spend long periods of time in close proximity to. Make a little glass fronted cabinet so you can display and enjoy them because they look fantastic and really deserve to be seen.
Also, don't grind the glass into a powder and breath in the dust - that is BAD - once inside you the radiation is far more easily absorbed into the tissues - that's the big problem with the thoriated TIG electrodes, people grind them to sharpen the tip and breath in the dust - then the radioactive particles are inside you.
Interesting, honestly i taught the camping lamp would be slighly more radioactive, other sources are MMA welding electrodes, TIG electrodes for steel, etc.
some tubes have some nuclear material in them, usually power rectifiers I noticed, the "hottest" thing I have is some depeated uranium on the side of my 50's Geiger that clocks in at 14.31 usv/h. The counter I have can even get a reading off of tritium keychains
thoriated welding rods are a really easy source for geiger counters, you can get them almost anywhere.
Looking at the tube glow is giving me Venus Equilateral flashbacks.
Hi Marc, what are the the brand and type no. of the tube we see at 0:55, and the one he's holding at 1:06? They're impressive.
I think the uranium glass has a slightly lower melting point so it is more likely to form properly around the wires
The pancake detector on the beige instrument it is actually alpha sensitive. Well you found out that the uranium glass is the least radioactive material. There is a small amount o uranium in it and also uranium is the least radioactive element after thorium. The radioactivity in nature is actually mostly given by U and Th decay elements, but when you process uranium you remove the radioactive elements. That piece of glass will be more radioactive as it ages.
I think the moral of the story is that a clock with a radium dial is way more radioactive than uranium glass or thorium mantles. That being said, the amount of radiation given off is small, and actually your skin is blocking pretty much all of it. As long as you don't eat the glass, you should be fine :3
Fascinating ! Some old valve can radiate X-ray as well when they are on, There was a label dedicated to service men
The big transmitter tubes probably could, as their plate voltages were often up in the 10kV range. CRT's in old televisions and computer monitors had the same issue, though IIRC they used lead in the glass to cut down on the x-ray emission,
Just thought of another semi-common source: TIG welding electrodes. Thorium is present in certain ones giving way to a longer lasting point on the end of the electrode during use.
I wonder why it improves the seal is it because the uranium atoms are very dense?
Uranium glass is used in graded glass to metal seals
The fist formally correct answer. Thank you kind sir.
Many old valve amplifier tubes and rectifiers were deliberately doped with large amounts of uranium, thorium or radium in order to ionise the gas or vaccum in the chamber to increase conductivity and/or remove static build up, tubes for early radar equipment were often made with radioactive metals or salts inside..
Some chemicals used in the coatings of early cathode Ray tubes for early televisions had radioactivity from natural sources in the minerals, such as fluorescent materials on the screen front.
High voltage vaccum tubes in radio transmitters and amplifiers as well as large rectifiers often emitted radiation in the form of x rays and gammas when under heavy load at high voltages, this was the case with everyday television tubes ass well, they would emit Xrays all the time when powered on and this varied depending on the voltages involved in the electron gun and also the size and makeup of the tube and the glass, this is why aa lot of office spaces had the old CRT computer screens/monitors staggered/alternated with spaces so that they were not across from each other and office workers were not sitting behind the tube electron gun of the other persons computer monitor, so as to reduce the Xrays..
For anybody old enough to have used the old style CRT cathode Ray tube televisions, the high capacitance of the glass tube flask would build up static electricity on the tube front, which would crackle and tingle when you touched the screen, do you remember turning off the TV by the power button or remote control when you were nearby, and getting a fast pop/tingle of static electricity on your face even if you were 6 feet/2 meters away? This was due to the high voltage high potential inside the tube in the field coil collapsing and discharging and this surge/spike induced a high voltage inside the cathode Ray tube that led to the short but powerful emission of Xrays, ionising the air in front of the television or computer monitor (all around it really) and this temporarily conductive airgap which was otherwise a fairly good insulator would conduct the static electricity away and it would make your face tingle uncomfortably when you felt it, this is why radioactive sources are used in textile and plastic factories to dissipate static electricity...
So if you grew up any time before about 2003 you were getting several low power Xrays each day without realising it...
Just to add, towards the end of the era of cathode Ray tube televisions and computer monitors, the outer part of the cathode ray tube (CRT) screens had a metallised coating containing lead oxide, which was used along with a "degausing" wire to discharge the static electricity, there were "degausing" buttons to push on computer monitors when static built up (this would affect the field coil temporarily when used due to the high voltage surge of grounding the static away) and make the picture wobble for a second or two on the screen..
Right at the end of the market for CRTs there were a automatic degausers which did this every set amount of time on computer screens and you would hear the relay click every 30 minutes or so, and just before the power went off when you shut down, the timing sequence would degause the screen to conceal/remove the static electricity being ejected/conducted away by the ionisation from the x ray emission when the magnetic field collapse from powering off the field and scan coils would induce a high voltage spike inside the vaccum tube that caused unavoidable xray emission (a bit like an early style xray "gun" component of an old style xray machine)
Some more upmarket CRT televisions and monitors would detect static build up and discharge via degausing more frequently..there were also very very fine wire meshes on screens at that point in time for anti static purposes..
Now we have OLED super high definition televisions and laptop and tablet screens, 4K and 8K (in years to come reading this will be long outdated as there will be more and more leaps forward and even better screen and projector picture quality and better phone and tablet computer screens..
(written in early April 2020)
That big tube at 4:05,i have one of These, shouldt i,m afraid,of the radiation, that comes from the uranium glass,or not?
Figures that you’d get all the hot stuff... 😜
My first thought when i saw this video was NileRed Uranium glass, really glad u mentioned his video.
@7:33 - If anyone is interested, do a search for "The Radium Girls" to learn about the tremendous ladies that helped to make these dials in war-time, and clocks after the war.
I see one like the biggest that was used on a soldering machine for pvc leather by high frequency. I see this on a fabric next time I going to put uv ligth to see if are uranium glass
pretty cool seeing this stuff
Nice! Vacuum tubes are amazing because of how different they are from solid state devices. I am wondering, given your love of old HP test equipment, why you don't seem to have any old HP oscillators like the 200CD or any of its siblings. By the way, after discovering your site and finding your Friden documentation, I now have the courage to get my thrift-store-purchased Friden SBT10 unjammed and working.
Excellent! Good luck on your Friden, at least my scanning effort has not gone in vain. I have one tube-based HP instrument, a current probe - can't remember its number. Still works! I should make a video on it one day. But that's the only one I have.
The outer glass of the tubes is probably blocking the alpha particle emissions. Still not the best thing to keep on your bedside table though.
I've use the Diode Tubes from a Tv to do DIY X-Ray's before. One Diode Tube , A HV power supply and some Polaroid Film is all that is required to accomplish the feat. Edmond's Scientific use to sell vials of Yellow Cake to play with. I had a couple of vials. Took them to school to show a teacher. He never gave them back. LOL
You can purchase a functional Mueller Tube radiation detector from BangGood for under $30.00. I have one I play with along with a few various radioactive sources. Did you know Salt Substitute is Radio Active ? LOL
Anything with potassium in it is radioactive; even you!!
I have tow alpha senetive geiger counters both made in Germany Gammascout and the Military one :). I hope you will find someone with a alpha tube!
The atomium is actually not related to the atomic age but was designed to represent the 9 provinces of Belgium. Ironically, the people behind the project decided to mostly use aluminium instead of steel even though the Atomium also represents an iron atom.
I saw the nilered video when it came out and was surprised you suggested it. he has some trouble getting the glass to cure but otherwise its a very interesting video.
A lot of things are radioactive. People and bananas are radioactive. Such low levels that it's hard to measure. Don't worry about your tubes.
There's thorium inside, too.
Fascinating. 4:02 irradiated or irrigated?
I did similar things when I got my cheap geiger counter, testing all my household items like the mantle on a coleman gas lamp (nope. turns out it wasn't thorium based!) and various glassware etc. My parents have BY FAR the most radioactive things readily available to the public: orange fiestaware dishes! A brief video demonstration I made is at , though there are probably lots of others on youtube describing in greater detail what uranium oxide glaze was used on the orange plates. (The other colors are all non-radioactive)
I have an orange Fiestaware coffee cup that really sets off my Geiger counter. It's way hotter than a chunk of uranium glass that I have!
Aren't those "pencil" tube the actual geiger tube. The rest is a voltage converter to get it biased.
Note Bob's Data General NOVA.
Those tubes with r glass will only give a bit more of a reading if there broken/cracked
It is not an accident. Radioactive materials are sometimes used to help give a starter charge for the tube.
That would be for ionized gas tubes. Not for these, these are regular vacuum tubes. The uranium is used in the glass around the leads to better match the coefficient of expansion of the metal leads.
Was my first intuition when they where registering low emissions if the detectors were suited for the right particles. I'm sooo nerdy...
The pancake probe used later is the right instrument, the radiation is just that weak. Also it was a bit awkward to measure because of the shape of the tube envelope
Ifffff you have a getter, you may also have cesium in there
Alpha radiation is highly ionizing I think, so does this glass affect the valve functioning a little?
In tubes that rely on ionized gas (Thyratrons, Neons,...), it is indeed used for that purpose. But for vacuum tubes like these there is nothing inside to ionize, so I would think it has no effect.
@@CuriousMarc That makes perfect sense, thank you.
5:44 ask bob lazar what ever happened to that playset.
I have a chinese gas mantle which gives 3k pulses per second. But i also have some pottery with uranium coating giving 3000 pulses per second. (Measurement taken with Herfurth Microcont I)
Uranium glass usually does not show much surface activity with normal scintillation survey meters because the energy of those alpha parts is way too low. You can try to build a ion chamber though. Ion chambers have very obscure components in them www.techlib.com/science/ion.html so it might be a thing for you.
It takes a lot of amperage to light up a 304TL, the tube the young man had in his hand.
Hehe don't worry. Alpha rays won't hurt you unless you maybe swallow the emitting source. Just wrap it up in paper and you're fine :)
They're not rays; they're particles. Helium-4 nuclei, to be specific. But yeah, they won't hurt you as long as they stay outside your body.
Not really. Alpha particles can have high enough energy to penetrate the epiderm and, when long exposure occurs, can produce cancer. Another channel ( I cannot for the life of me to remember the name) demonstrated this fact with "negative ion" products, some of winch are actually Thorium infused
@@whitslack wave-particle duality says they're both. :)
@@JamesChurchill: Wave-particle duality doesn't make a lot of sense for particles that have mass. Alpha and beta particles both have mass; gamma rays do not.
@@whitslack unfortunately quantum mechanics doesn't much care what we think makes sense. Massful particles have a wave function just like photons.
just the equivalent of a chest x-ray no worries bro 😂
I am looking for a 3cx 1200 7z
Be careful with this tubes. I like your channel.
Also be careful with the gas lamp mantle. They break into dust shockingly easily and you do NOT want to be breathing any of it in.
How many volts is the heater
More as a show piece, because those tubes are not dangerous (not unless you try one of these stupid modern trends to lick them...) you could try to get some lead glass to show case them with a little plaque explaining what they are and what the case is. Dunno about you, but i think that would be funny, certainly when other people would read the text. :))
The uranium has decayed to background levels looking at how old they are.
Your tubes are harmless, you should worry more about getting put down by the voltage that would drive those tubes.
Probably picked up some x-rays too
Alpha particles can't even penetrate the layer of dead skin cells on the outside of your body. They're harmless as long as they remain outside your body. Don't inhale or swallow an alpha emitter, though!
There's a classic physics puzzle. You have three cookies, one containing an alpha emitter, one containing a beta emitter, and one containing a gamma emitter. You have to eat one, put one in your pocket, and hold one in your hand. What do you do?
Answer: Hold the alpha emitter in your hand since, as mentioned, alpha particles won't even penetrate the outermost layer of dead skin cells. Put the beta emitter in your pocket; your clothing will be a fairly effective shield. Eat the gamma emitter since it'll be doing the same damage to you regardless of which of the three actions you choose to do with it.
For a french guy, he has a pretty good English accent.
Everyone bring in your tubes 😉
just put the tubes in a nice thick wood box with lots of balled up newspaper it will keep them from getting broken and keep the alpha radiation inside