[Lex Computer & Tech Group/LCTG] Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab

Dick r.w.wagner at verizon.net
Tue May 12 13:45:19 PDT 2020


For what it's worth, I also was fascinated to see my toes wiggle in the 
Buster Brown shoes as I and the shoe salesman looked at the x-ray image 
of my feet in my new shoes. Other than the salesmen getting multiple 
x-ray doses, the main problem was that the x-rays were irradiating our 
gonads and head as we peered down through the machine to see our feet. 
At the time, x-ray exposure was not well collimated, if at all, for any 
such irradiation, including dentistry.

i also loved my Gilbert Chemistry set, particularly when I burned the 
sulfur! My mother then thru me out of the house!

Finally, the toxicity of U-238 is not due to its alpha and gamma 
radioactivity; Its half-life is in the billions of years, as I recall. 
The problem with U-238 is its chemical toxicity, which incidentally does 
include the alpha emissions as an aspect.

Great discussion - Dick

On 5/12/2020 10:34 AM, Steve Isenberg wrote:
> Hello Marc, and welcome to the list, I hope you find our meetings 
> interesting and educational.
> I remember being disappointed when they would no longer let me look at 
> my feet through the fluoroscope, I climbed on it and tried to see 
> anyway, but of course it didn't work.  No one in the store knew why it 
> couldn't be used though, just that it couldn't.
> -steve
>
> On Tue, May 12, 2020 at 10:00 AM Stern, Marc <MSTERN at bentley.edu 
> <mailto:MSTERN at bentley.edu>> wrote:
>
>     Hello. I'm new to this list and group.  I'm not sure that kids
>     playing with radioactive isotopes or asbestos were some of the
>     wiser ways of developing an interest in science and the world
>     around us.   I'm pretty sure I had a piece of uranium in my rock
>     collection as well.
>
>     I had one of those watches too. They were very cool to see glow in
>     the dark.  For a different take on the social cost (not the
>     pleasure of the watch) check out the book/Radium Girls: Women and
>     Industrial Health Reform, 1910-1935/ by the late Claudia Clark. 
>     The book chronicles the nightmarish fate of so many of the young
>     women who worked in the dial painting industry.  Rather like the
>     girls who worked in phosphorous match making (who died of "phossy
>     jaw"). And while the little piece of asbestos was probably no big
>     deal, it's ubiquity in American construction, it's devastating
>     human effect on thousands in many industries, including, not
>     least, construction and shipbuilding, and mining communities while
>     firms knew the damage they were causing (see/Defending the
>     Indefensible,/by McCullough and Tweedale) ...,well, that little
>     piece probably wasn't a threat, but that's not why things
>     changed.  The fluoroscopes were cool, to be sure, but the shoe
>     salesmen who died,  you get the idea.   And I suspect Bill would
>     have taken way more than one shot to his feet.  I suspect coming
>     of age after Hiroshima and Nagasaki might have sharply reduced the
>     use of those machines.
>
>     I too want kids to range, explore and make their own ways with
>     less parental and adult oversight and control.  I really fear for
>     the loss of autonomous play.  I wonder if the smaller size of
>     families induces both greater emotional, social, and financial
>     investment (and fear of loss) with fewer children per family? 
>     There's interesting work on the class differences in this sort of
>     question as between larger working-class families and smaller
>     middle/upper-middle class families.
>
>     Sorry for babbling on by way of saying hello.
>
>     Marc Stern
>
>
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     *From:* LCTG <lctg-bounces+mstern=bentley.edu at lists.toku.us
>     <mailto:bentley.edu at lists.toku.us>> on behalf of William Quinn
>     <wquinn49 at yahoo.com <mailto:wquinn49 at yahoo.com>>
>     *Sent:* Tuesday, May 12, 2020 9:53 AM
>     *To:* carllazarus at comcast.net <mailto:carllazarus at comcast.net>
>     <carllazarus at comcast.net <mailto:carllazarus at comcast.net>>;
>     jjrudy1 at comcast.net <mailto:jjrudy1 at comcast.net>
>     <jjrudy1 at comcast.net <mailto:jjrudy1 at comcast.net>>;
>     mwolfe at vinebrook.com <mailto:mwolfe at vinebrook.com>
>     <mwolfe at vinebrook.com <mailto:mwolfe at vinebrook.com>>; 'Lexington
>     Computer Group New Address Distribution' <LCTG at lists.toku.us
>     <mailto:LCTG at lists.toku.us>>
>     *Cc:* 'Brett Rudy' <bkrudy at gmail.com <mailto:bkrudy at gmail.com>>;
>     'Jason Feightner' <jf8ner at hotmail.com <mailto:jf8ner at hotmail.com>>
>     *Subject:* Re: [Lex Computer & Tech Group/LCTG] Gilbert U-238
>     Atomic Energy Lab
>     I was born in 1949 but I don't remember ever seeing a fluoroscope
>     at the shoe store in NY. I must have just missed that. I would
>     have been fascinated by that device!
>
>
>
>
>     Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android
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>         On Mon, May 11, 2020 at 9:54 PM, Carl Lazarus
>         <carllazarus at comcast.net <mailto:carllazarus at comcast.net>> wrote:
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