Great video. I come to this topic from 3 directions. I’m a long time jewelry hobyist and gem collector. I have quite a bit of London Blue Topaz. Also I am a former navy nuclear power guy. Third, I am a science hobyist including projects like a cloud chamber and (very small) accelerator. So I am triple-delighted to hear from you! So nice to see your measurements with the gamma spectrometer and your sleuthing with the chart of the nuclides. Clearly, you have some uncommon insight and access and it is TERRIFIC that you share it with the general audience. I’m looking forward to getting out my radiac and pointing it at some gems.
@@Carl_Willis By the way, do you have any idea how Cs-137 made it into the samples? I'm surprised fission products were able to contaminate the samples.
@@teflon_ptfe My guess is trace natural uranium in the topaz. If it were younger, you'd also see the U-239 peak and some short-lived products like Cs-138.
Kinda proud of myself for guessing trace europium before you got it on the HPGe 😁 The property being observed at 1:10 we call pleochroism in the mineral world - due to anisotropic crystal structure polarizing the transmitted light. Have you tried examining this material under UV? High quality UVA LEDs have become very powerful (watts) and very cheap in recent years and open a truly enchanting window on the hidden world of mineral fluorescence if you haven't been into that scene of late. We have LEDs emitting significant power (~0.1 W) down to the UVC at ~250nm now too. I would be interested to see how this material's fluorescence spectrum shifts before and after irradiation. I would bet there is even some residual radioluminescence and phosphorescence visible to the unaided eye immediately after it comes out of the core, a la Iceland spar calcite in those famous e-beam irradiation ride through videos by Seltzman from a few years back.
I flashed a longwave UV lamp on the stuff and it is--to my eye--pretty dead from the standpoint of fluorescence. There probably is some luminescence, from the Cherenkov process if nothing else, right when it comes out of the reactor. Lots of short-lived, very energetic emitters are present at that moment!
Thanks for another great video Carl, very high quality and low-noise content as always! Can you tell us please what the live time was for those spectra? The pancake shows enough activity I'm guessing about an hour was all it took.
With fission/fusion assisted jewelry making - we'd open up a whole new market! From "trinitite" to blue topaz to lots of various crystals and glasses I'm sure - we'd get lots of milage out of rings of materials at varying distances from the detonation point. The ground between major production points could be covered with beads of glass, non-activatable metals and etc. ---- Need a good name. "Gamma Jem's"? No, not good. Hmmm this is like band names.
I kinda hope the Department of Energy sees this and someone says, "You know, that is just a really good outreach idea demonstrating the peaceful use of thermonuclear explosives." They used nukes for fracking natural gas in the Gasbuggy project, but now fracking is uncool. They used a nuke in the Sedan test to demonstrate terraforming for agriculture and the only minor downside, I think, was crop radioactivity and fallout across the continental US, but the idea of giving nukes to uneducated rural chawbacons remains transgressive. Making great topaz jewelry would be something everybody could get behind!
Very interesting video Carl, It was cool to see that many peaks in a naturally non radioactive mineral . Do you think that the Cs-137 peaks could be caused by contamination of the topaz by fission products from the reactor fuel or could they be formed by the fission of natural uranium that might be present in the topaz?
I would certainly hope that any Cs-137 observed is the result of fission on trace natural U or Th. But you touch on something that causes concern every time Cs-137 is seen in a reactor-activated sample, and that is concern for the fuel and the fission product barriers around it. I'm pretty sure the reactors doing this work have not suffered fuel failure. Pretty sure.
@@Carl_Willis Hopefully so, hopefully the cesium is from natural uranium, it would be much safer and cooler to say that your topaz ring underwent fission
Great video, and thank you for the analysis! Do you know if this is ever used for "forensics", to determine where a mineral like that is from, and if it's authentic?
That is certainly suggested by the differences observed, but I don't think there's any systematic understanding of these differences yet, at least not published in open literature.
please make some more video's on plasma tubes, that is given you still experiment with those.. to date you provide the best video's on the subject so it would be much appreciated by many if you would continue that series! anyhow gave a good one!
Glad you like those vids. I haven't been too active with plasma art lately since I moved and haven't set up the equipment in the new workshop for it. Too many other things going on. But I will come back to it.
How much does it cost to radiate Topaz? Does it get deeper blue the longer it gets irradiation? How about rubies? What happen when Diamonds or rubies gets radiate?
Blue apatite is hot due to natural uranium in it! The uranium is chemically attracted into the phosphate structure of the mineral. What I don't know is why apatite is often blue...probably due to a substitution defect.
It's very hard to say there are "no" radium peaks. Radium peaks show up in every spectrum, and apportioning them between background and sample can be difficult when the count times are long. In this case, they could be effectively buried by all the other activity. Ra is in secular equilibrium with U-238, whose specific activity is extremely low, whereas Cs-137 specific activity is higher by a factor of almost a billion.
X-rays create color centers (simplistically, bound electron-hole pairs), but these are unstable without displacement defects, apparently. So yes, they will color topaz that has latent displacement damage. Alpha radiation creates both types of dose effects, but of course is very weakly penetrating.
Hello, apologies for the off topic question, but I do remember you doing some videos with Bionerd23 and was curious if you know what happened to them as they have not posted in 5 years and you and her were the ones who got me into nuclear physics.
I'm also curious! I remember seeing Carl much younger on her channel in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. I'm a big radiation buff and I somehow just stumbled across Bionerds channel after seeing almost every Chernobyl video online haha
He is back with a spectrum full of peaks and an interesting story, nice!
Great video. I come to this topic from 3 directions.
I’m a long time jewelry hobyist and gem collector. I have quite a bit of London Blue Topaz.
Also I am a former navy nuclear power guy.
Third, I am a science hobyist including projects like a cloud chamber and (very small) accelerator.
So I am triple-delighted to hear from you!
So nice to see your measurements with the gamma spectrometer and your sleuthing with the chart of the nuclides. Clearly, you have some uncommon insight and access and it is TERRIFIC that you share it with the general audience.
I’m looking forward to getting out my radiac and pointing it at some gems.
Amazing video as always!
Glad you enjoyed it!
@@Carl_Willis By the way, do you have any idea how Cs-137 made it into the samples? I'm surprised fission products were able to contaminate the samples.
@@teflon_ptfe My guess is trace natural uranium in the topaz. If it were younger, you'd also see the U-239 peak and some short-lived products like Cs-138.
@@Carl_Willis Ahhh I see, yeah that makes sense!
Kinda proud of myself for guessing trace europium before you got it on the HPGe 😁
The property being observed at 1:10 we call pleochroism in the mineral world - due to anisotropic crystal structure polarizing the transmitted light.
Have you tried examining this material under UV? High quality UVA LEDs have become very powerful (watts) and very cheap in recent years and open a truly enchanting window on the hidden world of mineral fluorescence if you haven't been into that scene of late. We have LEDs emitting significant power (~0.1 W) down to the UVC at ~250nm now too. I would be interested to see how this material's fluorescence spectrum shifts before and after irradiation. I would bet there is even some residual radioluminescence and phosphorescence visible to the unaided eye immediately after it comes out of the core, a la Iceland spar calcite in those famous e-beam irradiation ride through videos by Seltzman from a few years back.
I flashed a longwave UV lamp on the stuff and it is--to my eye--pretty dead from the standpoint of fluorescence. There probably is some luminescence, from the Cherenkov process if nothing else, right when it comes out of the reactor. Lots of short-lived, very energetic emitters are present at that moment!
@@Carl_Willis interesting. thanks for checkin it out!
Always fantastic content Carl! Glad to see you're doing well. Hope to see you out east again at some point.
Man your videos deserve more views. I always love your content!
Thanks!
Thanks for another great video Carl, very high quality and low-noise content as always!
Can you tell us please what the live time was for those spectra? The pancake shows enough activity I'm guessing about an hour was all it took.
These spectra are about a day apiece. Granted, an hour is all one needs to get decent peaks. But a day will reduce uncertainties considerably.
Wow!! I was just thinking about you last night!! Great to see you Carl!!! Thanks & Merry Christmas!!!
Still waiting for the epic crossover colab with Ilinois energy prof😊. Been needing some spicy content, thanks Carl
amazing information, thank you.
Thanks Carl
Glad to see you again
Amazing!
With fission/fusion assisted jewelry making - we'd open up a whole new market! From "trinitite" to blue topaz to lots of various crystals and glasses I'm sure - we'd get lots of milage out of rings of materials at varying distances from the detonation point. The ground between major production points could be covered with beads of glass, non-activatable metals and etc.
---- Need a good name. "Gamma Jem's"? No, not good. Hmmm this is like band names.
Thanks for the hydrogen bomb suggestion. I know a guy.
I kinda hope the Department of Energy sees this and someone says, "You know, that is just a really good outreach idea demonstrating the peaceful use of thermonuclear explosives." They used nukes for fracking natural gas in the Gasbuggy project, but now fracking is uncool. They used a nuke in the Sedan test to demonstrate terraforming for agriculture and the only minor downside, I think, was crop radioactivity and fallout across the continental US, but the idea of giving nukes to uneducated rural chawbacons remains transgressive. Making great topaz jewelry would be something everybody could get behind!
@@Carl_WillisDon't forget their usefulness in fire fighting. No, really, it actually works and has been done about a dozen times. 😂
I like your Nuclear physics presentation
Very interesting video Carl, It was cool to see that many peaks in a naturally non radioactive mineral . Do you think that the Cs-137 peaks could be caused by contamination of the topaz by fission products from the reactor fuel or could they be formed by the fission of natural uranium that might be present in the topaz?
I would certainly hope that any Cs-137 observed is the result of fission on trace natural U or Th. But you touch on something that causes concern every time Cs-137 is seen in a reactor-activated sample, and that is concern for the fuel and the fission product barriers around it. I'm pretty sure the reactors doing this work have not suffered fuel failure. Pretty sure.
@@Carl_Willis Hopefully so, hopefully the cesium is from natural uranium, it would be much safer and cooler to say that your topaz ring underwent fission
Great video, and thank you for the analysis!
Do you know if this is ever used for "forensics", to determine where a mineral like that is from, and if it's authentic?
That is certainly suggested by the differences observed, but I don't think there's any systematic understanding of these differences yet, at least not published in open literature.
please make some more video's on plasma tubes, that is given you still experiment with those..
to date you provide the best video's on the subject so it would be much appreciated by many if you would continue that series! anyhow gave a good one!
Glad you like those vids. I haven't been too active with plasma art lately since I moved and haven't set up the equipment in the new workshop for it. Too many other things going on. But I will come back to it.
that's good news :) cheers@@Carl_Willis
3:35 that’s the cutest h-bomb I’ve ever seen!
How much does it cost to radiate Topaz? Does it get deeper blue the longer it gets irradiation? How about rubies? What happen when Diamonds or rubies gets radiate?
When he saod if i had a hydrogen bomb sitting around, i was like: "Uhh... No I... don't have a hydrogen b0mb lying around..."
Very interesting! Does blue apatite undergo the same process or it's radioactivity is natural?
Blue apatite is hot due to natural uranium in it! The uranium is chemically attracted into the phosphate structure of the mineral. What I don't know is why apatite is often blue...probably due to a substitution defect.
On the Indian spectrum, sixth peak from the left is unlabeled; what is it?
511kev annihilation peak would be my guess.
i'm thinking ubiquitous thermo-electric radioisotope generators. can't stop the power generation. it just keeps coming out of the rocks!
Although very weak heat for sure!
@@Carl_Willis word. better than nothing. maybe useful. deserves research, imo.
If there is enough Uranium in the sample to create a Cs-137 peak, why are there no radium peaks?
It's very hard to say there are "no" radium peaks. Radium peaks show up in every spectrum, and apportioning them between background and sample can be difficult when the count times are long. In this case, they could be effectively buried by all the other activity. Ra is in secular equilibrium with U-238, whose specific activity is extremely low, whereas Cs-137 specific activity is higher by a factor of almost a billion.
Do you think that x-ray radiation or perhaps alpha radiation may also cause a color change?
X-rays create color centers (simplistically, bound electron-hole pairs), but these are unstable without displacement defects, apparently. So yes, they will color topaz that has latent displacement damage. Alpha radiation creates both types of dose effects, but of course is very weakly penetrating.
what happened to bionerd23 ?
Hello, apologies for the off topic question, but I do remember you doing some videos with Bionerd23 and was curious if you know what happened to them as they have not posted in 5 years and you and her were the ones who got me into nuclear physics.
I'm also curious! I remember seeing Carl much younger on her channel in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. I'm a big radiation buff and I somehow just stumbled across Bionerds channel after seeing almost every Chernobyl video online haha