☢ This video was sponsored by Radiacode 102 - the world's first pocket-size radiation detector and spectrometer for all natural science enthusiasts Order now - 102.radiacode.com/3 and try out a new scientific hobby!
Got plans to build a diode based unit from the CERN educational website, comes with a database to calibrate readings. Just waiting on the board and parts. Just got the emitter when the detector failed, so figured why not? I also noticed, they're using the same circuit that was used to detect smoke around 40 years ago, but the emitter's about 1/3 the size. I'll also be building a cloud chamber, got some old kitchen storage containers that have broken lids, so why not? Order a 4 cm heat sink, got some blue freezer charged cool packs to cool it, some hot water on the top bin to give the heat differential. At least until I can build a chiller...
Careful there my friend, you say that too loud, they might come and try to get it canceled from the period table of the elements for being inherently racist and not inclusive of the other elements... ;)
It seems like the Americium sample could also be used to recharge the battery or power smoke alarms, but we're forced to buy disposable devices which don't allow the battery to be replaced. More planned obsolescence.
Not nearly enough americium for that. Adding that much would be insanely expensive and would give regular people access to dangerous amounts of nuclear material.
Great video! Thank you! In 1000 years, archeologists will find our nuclear deposits and think we had giant radioactive batteries that predate the first ones by a hundred years. Similar to how some believe the pyramids could have been giant batteries, when they were probably just waste storage facilities! LOL Kidding, but funny to think about.
Can you please provide the link to the site with the 3d step files for the spark detector? This episode is a very interesting contribution. Thanks for making us smarter!
Have never see a spark chamber, saw a cloud chamber is 6th grade and was mesmerized by the trails coming off of a needle point impregnated with an alpha source. Radiation is truly magical, but our inability to sense it makes it scary as well. Thanks for your efforts, it is obvious you are not a sleeper 😀
Funny, a year ago or so, I ordered an Am241-based smoke detection module just to test my cloud chamber. (and it did work). You did it the other way around, starting from the smoke detector :-)
Thank you for this video! I live in America and americium being so toxic yet in all too many everyday situation I must apologize for both! Hahahaha (Edited for typos)
Photoelectric alarms aren't "more advanced" than Ionization types! They just work differently. Each have their own pro's and cons. But each has their place.
@Thoisoi2 - Chemical Experiments! When are you going to do experiments on elements like Actinium or Protactinium? I would like to see a video on these elements please!
Wow... Most people who live in the U.S. probably don't know that pretty much half of all our smoke detectors have radioactive material in them (I only learned last year on @TechnologyConnections myself). Yeah, these radioactive ones are still made & sold here in the U.S. since there are advantages & disadvantages to both types. And if you live in an old house here, chances are good that the ones already there are this type. We were never taught this, & there are no easily visible warnings or instructions on disposal of these things (except a few with very tiny print most people would never pay attention to, which only vaguely say to dispose of it "properly". Properly where? How? Gee, thanks! I'll look into it more sometime, just in case we end up wanting to throw away the main one that came with our current home. In the meantime, my mom went ahead & got several of the other type, since we kept having too many false alarms with the original central one. I'm pretty sure that she just took the battery out of that one, so we can let the other ones do their job without punishing us for cooking or doing laundry. 😅 They REALLY should emphasize this kind of stuff to us in school, & periodic TV & online PSAs, so we don't keep throwing potentially valuable (& dangerous) things into the landfill. I'll bet only 5-10% of people using CFL bulbs actually turn them in to hardware stores for proper disposal, & the rest just throw them in the trash to crack & release toxic mercury vapors that damage their health, as well as shave points off of their IQ so they can keep making such mistakes (not to mention also harming the sanitation workers & the environment)... And only this spring did the local news finally inform the public that our local waste management services had already had 5 or 6 explosions/fires this year, which have injured workers & damaged trucks & equipment (both during trash pick-up & processing) due to people just casually throwing rechargeable batteries away in the trash (Yes, even empty ones carry this risk). And that was just in the SPRING. Plenty more have happened since then, I'm sure. And HAVE been happening, every year, to possibly EVERY waste management company (the story was only interviewing the LOCAL branch of ONE of them, & there are 4 competing ones in my neighborhood alone, let alone hundreds-to-thousands all over the country dealing with this)... Not everyone would have happened to see that news segment on that particular channel, of course. So this SHOULD be taught in school, & periodically reminded about nationally. (Maybe more people than I realize actually DO know, but just don't care... a certain 🍳démĭk has proven that, if about half of the people here don't directly know who they're hurting, they're totally happy to harm others if it saves them from minor inconvenience... 😢) And it'd certainly help way more if safe disposal/recycling of such things was more accessible for us; many of us are willing, but just plain not able. I live by a big major city, yet the only way to properly dispose of rechargeable batteries is by mailing them to a certain company, with the onus on _us_ to package them safely so their contacts don't touch each other & they somehow don't overheat/freeze, & we have to pay $35-$65 or so per shipment. Either that, or I'd have to drive for four hours to drop them off at a special store in-person (and STILL pay THEM a $15 or so disposal fee!). Who's gonna do that when their four AA batteries stop recharging & they barely make enough money to get by in this economy/have no spare time due to working 2-4 jobs? 😕 (So I'm racking up a drawer full of dead rechargeable batteries, as well as regular ones since they can still have material salvaged, having to be super careful with them, so when I finally can package them right, I can get more sent in for the fee... & have had to rescue CFL bulbs from the trash cuz people in my family keep forgetting... At least now we're almost exclusively on LEDs, phew! But yeah... We REALLY need better solutions here.)
Oh shoot I've thrown hundreds away in normal trash. 1 mg of Am 241 compared to the 600 thousand tons of high level isotopes dumped out of atmosphere from nuke testing I'll sleep easy tonight. But I will try to properly dispose in future had no idea Neptunium was a daughter product.
In Australia, we are allowed to put no more than 10 radioactive smoke alarms in our bin at once. If we have more than 10, we have to treat them as radioactive waste, or alternatively put the excess units in a different bin. There is no limit when placing them in a neighbour's bin.
What's really interesting is when you rip one open but keep it powered, and then put an oscilloscope on the output of the detector section. You can literally see the voltage levels drop as air gets more and more blocked by particles like smoke. That in itself isn't particularly astonishing, but then when you think of that crazy shower of particles flying off the Am241 sample getting interrupted by teeny tiny bits of carbon in the air causing a high voltage ionized air path to disrupt... Yeah... it's just totally cool. :-)
Agreed, I was hoping he would've found a way to increase the concentration of the vapor inside since he said it wasn't dense enough to show everything. Was my favorite part of the video.
@@JWolff-md3ij a tub of hot water on top will add to the concentration. Gotta get the felt for the one I'm building out of a couple of broken kitchen storage containers, they're 4 cm square units, cut the bottom out, goop and tape the two together keeping the bottom on one, fill the top with hot water and the bottom can have either dry ice or just blue cooler gel poured and taped into a heat sink for the bottom unit to rest upon.
Very good! I couldn't wait until you would upload. I watched in Russian first because of being very impatient. Your chemistry videos are excellent. 👋 from 🇨🇿
I recently got some old radium watch hands, and a small sample of ThO2 for my element collection. The watch hands don't glow brightly, but if I let my eyes adapt to the dark for an hour, I can see the super dim glow, with crazy sparkling all over. For the ThO2, I bought a ZnS(Ag) screen to place on top, and it is also a super dim and sparkly light show. This is another cool way to visualize alpha radiation, although it is unfortunately difficult to capture on camera.
I love that as well when I can't sleep l like to watch my old alarm clock spark and shimmer i never realized how relaxing and mesmerising ionizing radiation could be.
☣☢ Darn it! He just said its unsafe for a person to either swallow an americium sample or to attach it to your skin with a bandage.... But what else am I supposed to do with it!? Oh well, I guess I could just place it in a slot inside my element collection. But I REALLY wanted to swallow it! 😁
@@sb-cz7fk That's a great idea! I remember they used to sell these fake "ghost dog" leashes at Spencer Gifts, that gave the appearance you were walking an invisible dog. You could simply shrink the collar down from 8" in diameter to 8mm, which would fit seamlessly around the Americium disc! Walking a tiny disc of uncommon radioactive material attached to a goof dog leash seems like an incredibly logical and constructive way to spend my time!
@@HighlanderNorth1 sounds like a fantastic idea ! I mean they say walking a dog is a great way to make new friends and meet cute people so I wonder what walking a trans uranium metal around will get you.
Truly one of the only good science/chemistry based TH-cam channels left on TH-cam. My own channel doesn't even add up to near the greatness of this channel. Thank you for not selling out or changing to get more views like most other science based channels have done. Keep up the great work!
Cody'sLab Explosions&Fire + Extractions&Ire TheThoughtEmporium NileRed Chemical Force StyroPyro Applied Science NightHawkInLight They're just the ones that come to my mind, some are based purely on science, some are mainly science projects. None of them make clickbait like this channel has come down to as I see. Combined with the hard to watch lip desync and having learned in school and youtube just about everything he has to say I'm reassured in not watching this anymore. Thought Emporium has his own video about cloud chambers, and it's that device that allows for visualising radiation, Americium is just an example source you can put in the chamber.
It's amazing what your doing here. Very few other chemistry channels I've seen talk about the radioactive elements in such detail and in a captivating way!
The radioactive boy scout, David Hahn? I'd wager to bet that he had heard a lot about him. Everyone in this field of study has. But he used far, far more than just smoke detectors. He even ended up with a lot of radium compounds that he also used.
He was also collecting old clocks to get the radium when he found an old clock that had a bottle of radium paint inside it so he hit the mother load with that one clock.. every nerd knows all about the radioactive boy scout
He didn't actually build a nuclear reactor, this is a common misconception. David Hahn was trying to build a breeder reactor, a breeder reactor is a reactor that makes more fissionable material than it uses.
It would be ironic if the only reason some facilities were top secret in the past was because the officials didn't want the world to see how irresponsible dangerous materials were being handled.
This was fascinating! I saw my first cloud chamber on TV back in the very early 60's on a Mr. Science type show. My whole life I have wanted my own cloud chamber, and yours looks quite attainable. Thanks for the facility tour, also. I've wondered what happens to old smoke detectors. A truly wonderful science channel.
I really want to build a cloud chamber, it was awesome to see these things flying around. I saw one for the first time last year and while that one was professionally made, even a well build amateur one can be very cool. I have my 99% IPA sitting on my shelf waiting until I get the rest of the materials. I just really don't have the time unfortunately.
I went to Griffith Observatory today. They have an exhibit there that showed something I had never seen before that really intrigued me. It showed a cloud chamber and a spark chamber detector and they were being used to detect secondary cosmic rays. And then I come across this video later today purely by coincidence that showcased the same type of cloud chamber and the spark chamber detector. I don't know what to think now...
With a RTG, it will last longer using a longer half life element, but at a much lower power density, that's the trade-off - you need a much larger and heavier unit.
If I'm not mistaken, also, alpha particle emission takes place over a range of energies depending on several factors so some can penetrate paper. (Also the type of paper is a factor too)
I'm incredibly fortunate to have toured the 'back end' of the TRIUMF Research Particle Accelerator at UBC. When I toured I was in an area that was still contaminated with radioactive oxygen which had blown about. They had mostly cleaned up however you could also see black smudges of contaminated Carbon on the ventilation system. That's what you can do with a chem degree and a girlfriend whose father worked there for 20 years. :D (I didn't get a job when I applied, sad)
If you open a source chamber on a smoke detector stop when you see the tiny piece of gold. The Source is safe to handle at this point. It is still in a protective and shielded container with only the one window. The ionization chamber (cover) makes a great cap to control radiation. I always store mine above head level pointing upwards. Alpha radiation is used industrially to control static. I used to play with a source used during newspaper printing to control static cling.
I came to know about application of Americium during a project. Americium was used there to determine thickness of the metal sheet. It was amazing to know how the radioactive property is used to determine metal thickness. Your videos are really informative and useful. Thank you.
What to do with Americium, take #2: 1)Get a bunch of ionising chamber detectors. Scrape off the gold layer. If Am²O³ stays on the plate, skip to step 4). 2)Seperate Am²O³ from gold by dissolving it in a drop of acetic acid or melting off the gold. 3)Reduce Am (|||) from oxygen, turn it into hydroxide or just heat it to dry out. 4)Dissolve it in small drop of acetic acid, then in diluted citric acid and put in the syringe with a long, strong needle. 5)Travel to Altai Pukin',s unofficial castle residence. Find his favourite wine or other sour beverage. Bribe the distributors of this beverage to let you deliver them. Lace the bottles with Americium by injecting it equally trough corks. 5)Sit back, and enjoy the irony..
Great video as usual, but I have to contest one important thing. 9:15 - 60 keV X-rays (or gamma technically in this case) definitely aren't "safe". The TVL of soft tissue to 60 keV photons is like 11-12 cm/~4.5". Basically, 1/2 will penetrate at least 3.5cm/1.5", and 90-99+% will be absorbed by the body, and they are definitely highly ionizing in tissue. At 4uSv/hr, at that distance, you'd probably have to wave that thing over someone for a year in order to generate enough to make a single chest x-ray, so I'm not suggesting that it's dangerous to handle, but yeah, 60 keV is right in the middle of the range that penetrates enough to damage tissue, but not enough to pass right through. If you generate enough 60keV photons you basically have a perfect x-ray machine.
@@Reptex_cs It isn't likely to cause any harm at those levels. That's why I said it's not unsafe - quantity-wise. The quality/energy level of the radiation, however shouldn't be characterized that way. It's probably irrelevant to 99.9% of people in any situation they are likely to even encounter. Just that, to say 60 keV photon radiation is harmless is exactly the opposite of true. It gets slightly complicated... For radiation safety guidelines we use a linear non-threshold model. That means we take levels with known harmful effects and assume that, for instance, 1/1000th of that is 1/1000th as harmful. We know that's not true based on epidemiological data that we have - low levels up to a few 10's of times normal background *may* even be slightly beneficial - but it's the standard practice for regulatory purposes to assume "no safe dose". Also, If you ate it 🙄, kept it near your eye for a long time, or carried it in your pocket every day... You might increase risk of cancer, cataracts, or fertility issues respectively. Honestly probably still not, but having no respect for it isn't a good approach is all I'm saying. Or if you got 1000 of them and tried to extract the Am (someone did that) - that'd be dangerous. It's hard to communicate radiation health physics effectively. That's why everyone is (wrongly) afraid of nuclear power.
You’re the one that got me into chemistry, I had zero interest in this subject since I only cared about physics but you’ve sparked something big in me. Thank you for all that you do, I hope you make a lot of money off these videos.
Americium is still important in research. I wonder why they'd dispose of the smoke detectors instead of refining the Americium out of them? It's got to be cheaper than making new material?
If I had to guess, I would believe they don't yet recycle them is price. Similar to trying to refine the gold from circuit boards, it costs more to remove and purify it than it's worth, though in the future it may be viable.
I wonder how many smoke alarms it would take to build a nuke if you also built a reactor or a proton accelerator with them to make other better fissile material?
You couldn't build a nuclear bomb out of americium as it is not fissionable, although you are right about using it to make fissile material, as I'm pretty sure almost any alpha source will do.
Great video. I used my home smoke detector to check my first Geiger counter before getting a test source and some uranium ore samples which I use now. I never saw a spark detector before, thanks for the all your effort in making yours work.
☢ This video was sponsored by Radiacode 102 - the world's first pocket-size radiation detector and spectrometer for all natural science enthusiasts
Order now - 102.radiacode.com/3 and try out a new scientific hobby!
I bought one a year ago after seeing it on youtube. It works really well and the spectrum analysis in the android app is really interesting!
Got plans to build a diode based unit from the CERN educational website, comes with a database to calibrate readings. Just waiting on the board and parts.
Just got the emitter when the detector failed, so figured why not?
I also noticed, they're using the same circuit that was used to detect smoke around 40 years ago, but the emitter's about 1/3 the size.
I'll also be building a cloud chamber, got some old kitchen storage containers that have broken lids, so why not? Order a 4 cm heat sink, got some blue freezer charged cool packs to cool it, some hot water on the top bin to give the heat differential. At least until I can build a chiller...
What a brilliant documentary. Your content is consistently fantastic.
This is the most American metal I've ever seen
From the Estonian mad scientist guy.
Especially since its used to tell fire to go fuck itself.
Careful there my friend, you say that too loud, they might come and try to get it canceled from the period table of the elements for being inherently racist and not inclusive of the other elements...
;)
oh my god the comedy 😂
@@chaosreigns7386 it is! racist priveledged metal
Top shelf visual explanatory lectures. Much appreciated.
It seems like the Americium sample could also be used to recharge the battery or power smoke alarms, but we're forced to buy disposable devices which don't allow the battery to be replaced. More planned obsolescence.
Not nearly enough americium for that. Adding that much would be insanely expensive and would give regular people access to dangerous amounts of nuclear material.
@@Ithirahad If you give those people enough nuclear material, they will become irregular. The problem is self-resolving.
Amazing demonstrations
your videos are so well explained and produced.
I can see you put lots of work into each one.
I'm really grateful for your work!
FWIW: I have known about _cloud chambers_ for decades, but that _spark chamber_ thing is completely new to me.
Great video! Thank you!
In 1000 years, archeologists will find our nuclear deposits and think we had giant radioactive batteries that predate the first ones by a hundred years. Similar to how some believe the pyramids could have been giant batteries, when they were probably just waste storage facilities! LOL Kidding, but funny to think about.
This channel is great! Thank you for the education.
Can you please provide the link to the site with the 3d step files for the spark detector? This episode is a very interesting contribution. Thanks for making us smarter!
Literally one of the best channels on TH-cam!!!
Yaaaay thoisoi is back! Did u actually got hacked mate?
The tour was such a bonus!
Lightning is made by aliens confirmed.
Have never see a spark chamber, saw a cloud chamber is 6th grade and was mesmerized by the trails coming off of a needle point impregnated with an alpha source. Radiation is truly magical, but our inability to sense it makes it scary as well. Thanks for your efforts, it is obvious you are not a sleeper 😀
great video. I always learn things on this channel I've never heard of anywhere else
Excellent production! I enjoyed this a great deal!
Well done, dude. Very informative, thank you!
I have seen cloud chambers before but never have I heard about spark chamber detector. Thank you so much
Really amazing demonstrations and information. Thank you!
Best science Channel in TH-cam
Funny, a year ago or so, I ordered an Am241-based smoke detection module just to test my cloud chamber. (and it did work). You did it the other way around, starting from the smoke detector :-)
i knew smoke detectors had radioactive stuff in them, but not why. this was very interesting!
Excellent video! Keep up the fantastic work!
Thank you, excellent channel
Excellent video. Like all the other comments there's not much more praise to add then please keep them up.
Thank you for this video!
I live in America and americium being so toxic yet in all too many everyday situation I must apologize for both!
Hahahaha
(Edited for typos)
Photoelectric alarms aren't "more advanced" than Ionization types! They just work differently. Each have their own pro's and cons. But each has their place.
There was a boy scout who made a nuclear reactor in his backyard shed with a bunch of smoke alarms.
@Thoisoi2 - Chemical Experiments! When are you going to do experiments on elements like Actinium or Protactinium? I would like to see a video on these elements please!
1:49 Ideas: Americium is inside Plutonium nuke 😮
I visited an old Sovjet Reaktor but there the safety was quite high, absolutely no walking around with your own detector.
Wow... Most people who live in the U.S. probably don't know that pretty much half of all our smoke detectors have radioactive material in them (I only learned last year on @TechnologyConnections myself). Yeah, these radioactive ones are still made & sold here in the U.S. since there are advantages & disadvantages to both types. And if you live in an old house here, chances are good that the ones already there are this type. We were never taught this, & there are no easily visible warnings or instructions on disposal of these things (except a few with very tiny print most people would never pay attention to, which only vaguely say to dispose of it "properly". Properly where? How? Gee, thanks!
I'll look into it more sometime, just in case we end up wanting to throw away the main one that came with our current home. In the meantime, my mom went ahead & got several of the other type, since we kept having too many false alarms with the original central one. I'm pretty sure that she just took the battery out of that one, so we can let the other ones do their job without punishing us for cooking or doing laundry. 😅
They REALLY should emphasize this kind of stuff to us in school, & periodic TV & online PSAs, so we don't keep throwing potentially valuable (& dangerous) things into the landfill.
I'll bet only 5-10% of people using CFL bulbs actually turn them in to hardware stores for proper disposal, & the rest just throw them in the trash to crack & release toxic mercury vapors that damage their health, as well as shave points off of their IQ so they can keep making such mistakes (not to mention also harming the sanitation workers & the environment)...
And only this spring did the local news finally inform the public that our local waste management services had already had 5 or 6 explosions/fires this year, which have injured workers & damaged trucks & equipment (both during trash pick-up & processing) due to people just casually throwing rechargeable batteries away in the trash (Yes, even empty ones carry this risk). And that was just in the SPRING. Plenty more have happened since then, I'm sure. And HAVE been happening, every year, to possibly EVERY waste management company (the story was only interviewing the LOCAL branch of ONE of them, & there are 4 competing ones in my neighborhood alone, let alone hundreds-to-thousands all over the country dealing with this)...
Not everyone would have happened to see that news segment on that particular channel, of course. So this SHOULD be taught in school, & periodically reminded about nationally.
(Maybe more people than I realize actually DO know, but just don't care... a certain 🍳démĭk has proven that, if about half of the people here don't directly know who they're hurting, they're totally happy to harm others if it saves them from minor inconvenience... 😢)
And it'd certainly help way more if safe disposal/recycling of such things was more accessible for us; many of us are willing, but just plain not able. I live by a big major city, yet the only way to properly dispose of rechargeable batteries is by mailing them to a certain company, with the onus on _us_ to package them safely so their contacts don't touch each other & they somehow don't overheat/freeze, & we have to pay $35-$65 or so per shipment. Either that, or I'd have to drive for four hours to drop them off at a special store in-person (and STILL pay THEM a $15 or so disposal fee!). Who's gonna do that when their four AA batteries stop recharging & they barely make enough money to get by in this economy/have no spare time due to working 2-4 jobs? 😕
(So I'm racking up a drawer full of dead rechargeable batteries, as well as regular ones since they can still have material salvaged, having to be super careful with them, so when I finally can package them right, I can get more sent in for the fee... & have had to rescue CFL bulbs from the trash cuz people in my family keep forgetting... At least now we're almost exclusively on LEDs, phew! But yeah... We REALLY need better solutions here.)
Interesting video, indeed - thanks!
So if alpha particles are shooting outward from the material source perhaps we can harness hew particle waves to make electricity
How hard would it be it make them little diodes into like AA and AAA or 18650 size batteries. So 1.5-4.2volts
always interesting
does that plasma destroy the high energy particle into a short gamma blast ?
Hello. This is my house, entry please!
Wouldn`t an old Camera CCD Plate work as a particle detector to?
Can we find it in food or add it into the soil
cats on the end😄
When are you gonna talk about Americium's closest relative, Canadanium
Oh shoot I've thrown hundreds away in normal trash. 1 mg of Am 241 compared to the 600 thousand tons of high level isotopes dumped out of atmosphere from nuke testing I'll sleep easy tonight. But I will try to properly dispose in future had no idea Neptunium was a daughter product.
хорошее видео, полезное для школы.
9:24 " ... [60 keV] radiation does not damage our cells.." That's certainly not true. And penetration depth is also quite deep.
In Australia, we are allowed to put no more than 10 radioactive smoke alarms in our bin at once.
If we have more than 10, we have to treat them as radioactive waste, or alternatively put the excess units in a different bin.
There is no limit when placing them in a neighbour's bin.
Why do you have so many?
@@kitemanmusic It's just for good measure.
What about shared bin of an apartment block?_
Your Neighbor....😡😠☢️
"... Neighbor bin..." hahahahahha
Excellent shots you've captured here. What lens do you use for the tight macro shots?
Hi, I use Tamron 90mm f2.8 macro.
@@Thoisoi2 doesn't radiation damage the camera sensor ?
@@destiny_02 Good question! Would love to hear an answer as well.
@@destiny_02 The alpha radiation emitted shouldn't be able to but the secondary gamma radiation might.
@@destiny_02 Place a high Quality bromined glass so the radiation dosen;t affect the camera
What's really interesting is when you rip one open but keep it powered, and then put an oscilloscope on the output of the detector section. You can literally see the voltage levels drop as air gets more and more blocked by particles like smoke. That in itself isn't particularly astonishing, but then when you think of that crazy shower of particles flying off the Am241 sample getting interrupted by teeny tiny bits of carbon in the air causing a high voltage ionized air path to disrupt... Yeah... it's just totally cool. :-)
Thoisoi is back on his English channel after a month.
Still faster than Nillered
@@Thoisoi2 and Chemical Force
Edit: Now I am very regret about my comment.
@@Thoisoi2 😂😂
@@Thoisoi2 Still better than Nile Red, too.
Nilered was uploaded a video 5 mins ago.
Waiting for you to complete your playlist on Elements.🙏🤩
Americium, the United State's response to the dread alloy known as Stalinium
Good joke lol
I want one of those crazy Plutonium 238 smoke alarms. :D
Bleh, I want a cobalt-60 burglar alarm.
The tracks through the ethanol vapour are beautiful!
Agreed, I was hoping he would've found a way to increase the concentration of the vapor inside since he said it wasn't dense enough to show everything. Was my favorite part of the video.
@@JWolff-md3ij a tub of hot water on top will add to the concentration.
Gotta get the felt for the one I'm building out of a couple of broken kitchen storage containers, they're 4 cm square units, cut the bottom out, goop and tape the two together keeping the bottom on one, fill the top with hot water and the bottom can have either dry ice or just blue cooler gel poured and taped into a heat sink for the bottom unit to rest upon.
Very good! I couldn't wait until you would upload. I watched in Russian first because of being very impatient. Your chemistry videos are excellent. 👋 from 🇨🇿
I recently got some old radium watch hands, and a small sample of ThO2 for my element collection. The watch hands don't glow brightly, but if I let my eyes adapt to the dark for an hour, I can see the super dim glow, with crazy sparkling all over. For the ThO2, I bought a ZnS(Ag) screen to place on top, and it is also a super dim and sparkly light show. This is another cool way to visualize alpha radiation, although it is unfortunately difficult to capture on camera.
I love that as well when I can't sleep l like to watch my old alarm clock spark and shimmer i never realized how relaxing and mesmerising ionizing radiation could be.
☣☢ Darn it! He just said its unsafe for a person to either swallow an americium sample or to attach it to your skin with a bandage.... But what else am I supposed to do with it!? Oh well, I guess I could just place it in a slot inside my element collection. But I REALLY wanted to swallow it! 😁
@@HighlanderNorth1 he never said anything about making a fetching hat out of americium sources or walking around with one on a leash as a pet.
@@sb-cz7fk
That's a great idea! I remember they used to sell these fake "ghost dog" leashes at Spencer Gifts, that gave the appearance you were walking an invisible dog. You could simply shrink the collar down from 8" in diameter to 8mm, which would fit seamlessly around the Americium disc! Walking a tiny disc of uncommon radioactive material attached to a goof dog leash seems like an incredibly logical and constructive way to spend my time!
@@HighlanderNorth1 sounds like a fantastic idea ! I mean they say walking a dog is a great way to make new friends and meet cute people so I wonder what walking a trans uranium metal around will get you.
Truly one of the only good science/chemistry based TH-cam channels left on TH-cam. My own channel doesn't even add up to near the greatness of this channel. Thank you for not selling out or changing to get more views like most other science based channels have done. Keep up the great work!
I agree, but don't sell yourself short, kiddo.
Spam comment. There's other comments with this same copy paste.
Cody'sLab
Explosions&Fire + Extractions&Ire
TheThoughtEmporium
NileRed
Chemical Force
StyroPyro
Applied Science
NightHawkInLight
They're just the ones that come to my mind, some are based purely on science, some are mainly science projects.
None of them make clickbait like this channel has come down to as I see. Combined with the hard to watch lip desync and having learned in school and youtube just about everything he has to say I'm reassured in not watching this anymore.
Thought Emporium has his own video about cloud chambers, and it's that device that allows for visualising radiation, Americium is just an example source you can put in the chamber.
I don't care about your channel.
But I love your channel too......don't sell yourself short.
A particularly good episode this, thanks for all the hard work you've put it to it, ^oo^
It's amazing what your doing here. Very few other chemistry channels I've seen talk about the radioactive elements in such detail and in a captivating way!
Hi Thoisoi :)
Haven't you heard about American teenager who had built nuclear reactor in his yard using many smoke detectors?
The radioactive boy scout, David Hahn? I'd wager to bet that he had heard a lot about him. Everyone in this field of study has. But he used far, far more than just smoke detectors. He even ended up with a lot of radium compounds that he also used.
He was also collecting old clocks to get the radium when he found an old clock that had a bottle of radium paint inside it so he hit the mother load with that one clock.. every nerd knows all about the radioactive boy scout
He didn't actually build a nuclear reactor, this is a common misconception. David Hahn was trying to build a breeder reactor, a breeder reactor is a reactor that makes more fissionable material than it uses.
14:17 Our man has created minilightnings. Hence, he'll be known from now on as Thorsoi2.
🤔😆
Thoisoi2*
Now you tell me. I've done this cloud chamber experiment.
The spark gap is quite beautiful.
So you disavow Leftists, given your username...
@@Vicus_of_Utrecht No, he disavows racists like you.
@@FutureChaosTV He didn't say anything racist you melt
I wish off topic political talk could be put away safely inside one of the concrete cubes at the end of the video.
I saw you comment on another video couple days ago nice to see u again lol
My Grandkids are about to get educated by knowing more science and chemistry by watching your channel.
It would be ironic if the only reason some facilities were top secret in the past was because the officials didn't want the world to see how irresponsible dangerous materials were being handled.
Secrecy has the purpose to avoid and negate responsibilities of individuals in a bureaucracy. That's why we live in such miserable times.
oh the irony abounds my friend.
This was fascinating! I saw my first cloud chamber on TV back in the very early 60's on a Mr. Science type show. My whole life I have wanted my own cloud chamber, and yours looks quite attainable.
Thanks for the facility tour, also. I've wondered what happens to old smoke detectors. A truly wonderful science channel.
I really want to build a cloud chamber, it was awesome to see these things flying around. I saw one for the first time last year and while that one was professionally made, even a well build amateur one can be very cool.
I have my 99% IPA sitting on my shelf waiting until I get the rest of the materials. I just really don't have the time unfortunately.
@@dsandoval9396 and I have all the time in the world...
incredible... another awesome video about an every-day-appliance i never bothered to think about
really glad i found this channel in the past!
I went to Griffith Observatory today. They have an exhibit there that showed something I had never seen before that really intrigued me. It showed a cloud chamber and a spark chamber detector and they were being used to detect secondary cosmic rays. And then I come across this video later today purely by coincidence that showcased the same type of cloud chamber and the spark chamber detector. I don't know what to think now...
Great video. Lots of important information!
I've been wanting to see a video on this subject for a long time.
Thank you, Sir!
You are a remarkable scientist.
Truly amazing video. You always make great videos, but this was exceptional. Keep up the good work.
Videos like this remind me why I subscribed to thoisoi in the first place👍🏽
With a RTG, it will last longer using a longer half life element, but at a much lower power density, that's the trade-off - you need a much larger and heavier unit.
And a whole lot more of the element :D
Just love your vids on chemistry.
If I'm not mistaken, also, alpha particle emission takes place over a range of energies depending on several factors so some can penetrate paper. (Also the type of paper is a factor too)
I'm incredibly fortunate to have toured the 'back end' of the TRIUMF Research Particle Accelerator at UBC.
When I toured I was in an area that was still contaminated with radioactive oxygen which had blown about.
They had mostly cleaned up however you could also see black smudges of contaminated Carbon on the ventilation system.
That's what you can do with a chem degree and a girlfriend whose father worked there for 20 years. :D (I didn't get a job when I applied, sad)
Love your videos bro I have learned so much from watching your stuff. Thanks.
If you open a source chamber on a smoke detector stop when you see the tiny piece of gold.
The Source is safe to handle at this point. It is still in a protective and shielded container with only the one window.
The ionization chamber (cover) makes a great cap to control radiation. I always store mine above head level pointing upwards.
Alpha radiation is used industrially to control static. I used to play with a source used during newspaper printing to control static cling.
Wow! Thank you very much for the video!
*i found the homemade alpha particle detectors quite fascinating!*
😎🇺🇸
First view
wow,very fascinating!! best education channel, thank you!
I want a radiascan so bad. I just need to get my dream job first.
I came to know about application of Americium during a project. Americium was used there to determine thickness of the metal sheet. It was amazing to know how the radioactive property is used to determine metal thickness. Your videos are really informative and useful. Thank you.
What to do with Americium, take #2:
1)Get a bunch of ionising chamber detectors. Scrape off the gold layer. If Am²O³ stays on the plate, skip to step 4).
2)Seperate Am²O³ from gold by dissolving it in a drop of acetic acid or melting off the gold.
3)Reduce Am (|||) from oxygen, turn it into hydroxide or just heat it to dry out.
4)Dissolve it in small drop of acetic acid, then in diluted citric acid and put in the syringe with a long, strong needle.
5)Travel to Altai Pukin',s unofficial castle residence. Find his favourite wine or other sour beverage. Bribe the distributors of this beverage to let you deliver them. Lace the bottles with Americium by injecting it equally trough corks.
5)Sit back, and enjoy the irony..
Great video as usual, but I have to contest one important thing. 9:15 - 60 keV X-rays (or gamma technically in this case) definitely aren't "safe". The TVL of soft tissue to 60 keV photons is like 11-12 cm/~4.5". Basically, 1/2 will penetrate at least 3.5cm/1.5", and 90-99+% will be absorbed by the body, and they are definitely highly ionizing in tissue. At 4uSv/hr, at that distance, you'd probably have to wave that thing over someone for a year in order to generate enough to make a single chest x-ray, so I'm not suggesting that it's dangerous to handle, but yeah, 60 keV is right in the middle of the range that penetrates enough to damage tissue, but not enough to pass right through. If you generate enough 60keV photons you basically have a perfect x-ray machine.
If it takes a year to resemble a typical chest X-ray, isn't that safe enough?
@@Reptex_cs It isn't likely to cause any harm at those levels. That's why I said it's not unsafe - quantity-wise. The quality/energy level of the radiation, however shouldn't be characterized that way. It's probably irrelevant to 99.9% of people in any situation they are likely to even encounter. Just that, to say 60 keV photon radiation is harmless is exactly the opposite of true. It gets slightly complicated... For radiation safety guidelines we use a linear non-threshold model. That means we take levels with known harmful effects and assume that, for instance, 1/1000th of that is 1/1000th as harmful. We know that's not true based on epidemiological data that we have - low levels up to a few 10's of times normal background *may* even be slightly beneficial - but it's the standard practice for regulatory purposes to assume "no safe dose". Also, If you ate it 🙄, kept it near your eye for a long time, or carried it in your pocket every day... You might increase risk of cancer, cataracts, or fertility issues respectively. Honestly probably still not, but having no respect for it isn't a good approach is all I'm saying. Or if you got 1000 of them and tried to extract the Am (someone did that) - that'd be dangerous. It's hard to communicate radiation health physics effectively. That's why everyone is (wrongly) afraid of nuclear power.
You’re the one that got me into chemistry, I had zero interest in this subject since I only cared about physics but you’ve sparked something big in me. Thank you for all that you do, I hope you make a lot of money off these videos.
Dude just showed up at an ex-soviet nuclear waste disposal facility and they give him a tour.
Nice
Happy to see new element videos :)
Your map is missing about half of America. That's only North America and Central America , South America is missing. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas
Americium is still important in research. I wonder why they'd dispose of the smoke detectors instead of refining the Americium out of them? It's got to be cheaper than making new material?
If I had to guess, I would believe they don't yet recycle them is price. Similar to trying to refine the gold from circuit boards, it costs more to remove and purify it than it's worth, though in the future it may be viable.
Maybe because it decays quickly compared to Radium?
@@moonwalkerangel7008 just look up the hall life of Americium..
@@jeffwombold9167 It says Americium 243 has a half life of over 7,500 years but Americium 241 has a half life of 470 years. Ok, I stand corrected.
I wonder how many smoke alarms it would take to build a nuke if you also built a reactor or a proton accelerator with them to make other better fissile material?
look up the radioactive boyscout
You couldn't build a nuclear bomb out of americium as it is not fissionable, although you are right about using it to make fissile material, as I'm pretty sure almost any alpha source will do.
Where's my Americium Smoke alarm ? Come here , I want to extract something from you....
You should look at a pacemaker (most people don't know that they use an nuclear battery)
I certainly did not know that.
@@moonwalkerangel7008 You do now!
...if it's true, of course.
How can one create a nucliar batery from Americium. it whould help people run their home's for free electriscety.
As expected ,
above the level🤩👍
Very good video. Now the next question: can you make a battery with Americium?
Great video. I used my home smoke detector to check my first Geiger counter before getting a test source and some uranium ore samples which I use now. I never saw a spark detector before, thanks for the all your effort in making yours work.
Your accent sounds like Chemistry. You could not have a better accent to teach Chemistry.
U also very much in geopolitics!!! Mentioning china in every fricken video!!!
Did anyone else catch that the USSR used plutonium in smoke detectors‽