Swedish man arrested after trying to split atoms in his kitchen
 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...s-kitchen.html
lol, wonder if I could do that, might be cheaper than buying my gas/electric

:-)
Ste.

Re: Swedish man arrested after trying to split atoms in his kitchen
 

He later realised it might be dangerouse, no **** sherlock.

Re: Swedish man arrested after trying to split atoms in his kitchen
 

someone else a few years ago did something simillar but on a much large scale, got his radio active material from hundred of smoke alarms.

The ended up taking it away from him and issued hime a 250 thousand dollar clean up fine.

Re: Swedish man arrested after trying to split atoms in his kitchen
 

I have the feeling that this bloke wasn't very bright when it came to understanding the behaviour of radioactive materials, given quote of "describing how he created a small meltdown on his stove"....

A meltdown is when a critical mass melts under the heat of the fission chain reaction within it, the reaction releases HUGE amounts of energy and equally huge amounts of radiation, it's not something you're likely to survive seeing with your own eyes... You also need a pretty significant amount of material - somewhere around 15Kg for Uranium 233.

Melting a supposedly radioactive sample over a gas stove isn't a meltdown. Given the molten material will spread out in a thin layer on the bottom of the pan, you're actually moving further away from the critical mass situation that wasn't there in the first place....

Grade A Muppet!

Re: Swedish man arrested after trying to split atoms in his kitchen
 

I thought this was going to be about the first breakers yard for the new Ariels

Re: Swedish man arrested after trying to split atoms in his kitchen
 

Well thanks for that overly detailed anaylsis of how much of a muppet he is Ian :)
I find the whole thing quite comical :D

Re: Swedish man arrested after trying to split atoms in his kitchen
 

Genius. He'll go far that one :D

Re: Swedish man arrested after trying to split atoms in his kitchen
 

Glad I wasnt the only nerd that over analysed this. What i want to know is where he got all the materials from?

Re: Swedish man arrested after trying to split atoms in his kitchen
 

Bit more info here - http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/0...ments-at-home/

Though not much....

Glad I'm not the only nerd on the board - frankly I'm surprised Reeder understood what I posted....

Re: Swedish man arrested after trying to split atoms in his kitchen
 

Darwin Award?

Please don't under estimate me :)

Re: Swedish man arrested after trying to split atoms in his kitchen
 

Unfortunately I dont think he has removed himself from the gene pool.........yet, cant be long with ideas like a nuclear reactor in his kitchen though.

Re: Swedish man arrested after trying to split atoms in his kitchen
 

Sterilised himself?

Re: Swedish man arrested after trying to split atoms in his kitchen
 

We can but hope

Re: Swedish man arrested after trying to split atoms in his kitchen
 

Hmm, he might have managed to produce some slow (~400keV) neutrons by plating Americium-241 onto Beryllium foil. But even that's fairly tricky when you're only handling a few micrograms of material. I certainly wouldn't be impressed to find that one of my neighbours was trying things like that without proper facilities.

Uranium fission is a multi-billion dollar project, and there's a fair chance someone will come and bomb your facilities if they think you're getting close.

(http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/wo...15mideast.html)

Keith. (who has done some radiochemistry)

Re: Swedish man arrested after trying to split atoms in his kitchen
 

Ha ha ha, what kind of a loon thinks that that can construct a safe, home fission reactor? They should have given him a bowl of water and asked him to crack cold fusion!

So how did he intend to measure the amount of decay he was creating? Had a lovely experiment we used to show the kids in the school on Physics A-Level, Smoke chamber and a source of Ionising radiation. Rarely showed how amazing it could be, usually sat on the shelf unwanted because most of the teaching staff could not use it!

Think about this though, I read recently in New Scientist that Nuclear Weapon Scientists in America had to rediscover how to build a particular part of the atom bomb because the data that explained how to do it, was on a format no longer used by computers! Scary thought that even something this important can be lost in the Data jungle!

Some peoples stupidity actually defies belief!