Comments on: Why Does Radioactive Stuff Glow Green? (Or why do people think it does)

By: drbuzz0

drbuzz0 — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 02:45:03 +0000

My Dad passed on a WWII watch to me as a very young kid in the 1950s. It was so luminous that I could use it to read by late at night after ‘lights out’. That produced a green light. As it was behind a steel and glass case I suppose no alpha escaped. I don’t know what happened to it but I expect nowadays it should have been classified as radioactive waste.

Yeah, those were cool. Even if you knew where it was, it almost surely does not glow anymore. The radium is still plenty good, because it has a long halflife, but the florescent compounds in the paint degrade.

By: cnocspeireag

cnocspeireag — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:48:02 +0000

My Dad passed on a WWII watch to me as a very young kid in the 1950s. It was so luminous that I could use it to read by late at night after ‘lights out’. That produced a green light. As it was behind a steel and glass case I suppose no alpha escaped. I don’t know what happened to it but I expect nowadays it should have been classified as radioactive waste.

By: tom

tom — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 08:47:02 +0000

this is why. green radium glass that seems to glow under regular light then dose glow under a black light

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://z.about.com/d/chemistry/1/5/p/9/1/uranium-glass-fluorescence.jpg&imgrefurl=http://chemistry.about.com/b/2010/03/15/uranium-glass-see-the-glow.htm&usg=__tSsF1ke6RLKFjdmmUMT0aSiTTu0=&h=300&w=400&sz=45&hl=en&start=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=xnVCmk_KbUunbM:&tbnh=93&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgreen%2Buranium%2Bglass%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3DAWk%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26tbs%3Disch:1

By: moi

moi — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 06:12:16 +0000

Early glow-in-the-dark toys I had were all made of an off-white translucent plastic. And when they were taken into the dark they glowed a greenish glow. Im pretty sure thats where the cartoons get the ‘green glow’ from. Early glow in the dark toys. Thats what Ive always assumed anyhow.

By: drbuzz0

drbuzz0 — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 22:02:05 +0000

There was also a raging fire that took at least a few days to extinguish. That would make it even more difficult to distinguish any glow from just plain old flames.

By: BMS

BMS — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 21:50:37 +0000

The glow in what was left of the Chernobyl core was not due to ionizing radiation; rather, it was due to radiation of a more mundane kind: blackbody thermal radiation.

Graphite, when it becomes hot enough, begins to emit sufficient blackbody radiation in the visible spectrum to be seen by the naked eye. That is, if you heat it hot enough, it will glow red, just like other materials do, such as iron or steel. Heat the graphite to even higher temperatures, and it will begin to glow white hot.

The red glow that was seen at Chernobyl was simply red-hot graphite, which was heated to such high temperatures by the decay heat of the fission products in the core.

By: paul adk

paul adk — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 21:09:05 +0000

Have you seen images of the Chernobyl reactor? There was enough ionizing radiation to cause a glow in the core of the reactor. Not green, but red or blue. Sure looks like Hell though.

By: DV82XL

DV82XL — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 02:53:57 +0000

Daniel said:

The green color of radioactive material that suggests “radioactivity” is grounded in reality, but has nothing to do with “radioactivity” and everything with uranium: There was a time when uranium ores were used in the process of glass making (no joke). And the color of this uranium glass is a spectrum from lightish yellow to intensive “radioactive” green. The glass is not radioactive (ok, a little bit, but the natural radiation from the sun etc. is far more intensive) but when the right light shines on it, it looks really nice (just google for images).

Yes I have a small collection of marbles, acquired in my youth that are made of uranium glass. Transparent in ordinary light, they do glow green under UV. Some are milk-white and glow yellow when exposed to ultraviolet. EBay is awash with uranium glass marbles and beads, some made within the last few years.

Uranium glass has utilitarian as well as decorative applications. Its coefficient of thermal expansion happens to make it suitable for graded seals and glass-to-metal seals in glass apparatus, such as vacuum tubes and vacuum capacitors.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 01:54:48 +0000

The green color of radioactive material that suggests “radioactivity” is grounded in reality, but has nothing to do with “radioactivity” and everything with uranium: There was a time when uranium ores were used in the process of glass making (no joke). And the color of this uranium glass is a spectrum from lightish yellow to intensive “radioactive” green. The glass is not radioactive (ok, a little bit, but the natural radiation from the sun etc. is far more intensive) but when the right light shines on it, it looks really nice (just google for images).

By: Keith

Keith — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 05:25:34 +0000

Kim said:

I think you may have seen too much SciFi with a lot more Fi to it than Sci. That’s just how stuff is always shown in cartoons and stuff. It doesn’t look a thing like that!

Whoosh!