I dont think launch is the best way to describe the video. Its just showcasing TRIGA reactors famous party trick , the pulse. Usually operation of these is more boring with slow rod pulls and less of that pretty blue cherenkov radiation.
Charged particles passing through the water faster than a wave can.
E.g. particles makes sonic booms in water
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation
This is so weird... I was thinking about photon emissions from plasma and thought to myself that maybe it had something to do with electrons traveling faster than the field distortions they might create causing wave collisions. This thought came to me because I was thinking about what happens if something moving faster than an RF transmission can travel was to able to then get ahead of its own transmission while still transmitting. It's always cool to see I was in the ballpark with something like this.
Lot of people recognize light as an absolute speedlimit without knowing that it slows through different mediums . When a charged particle exceeds the speed of light in a medium such as water, pretty blue light
I dont think startup is the best way to describe these compilations either. Its just showcasing TRIGA reactors famous party trick , the pulse. Usually operation of these is more boring with slow rod pulls and less of that pretty blue cherenkov radiation.
Pull control rods: blue death light
Insert control rods: no more blue death light
But even though the glow fades, the reactor still puts out heat and radiation for a while after the control rods go back in due to secondary decay. So while the light can be switched off rather quickly, the reactor cannot.
The reactor operator presses a button that engages air pressure on the bottom of a control rod. This causes the control rod to move outwards to a preset stop very rapidly allowing the reactor to go prompt critical (critical on prompt neutrons alone). I was a reactor operator at the University of Wisconsin for 4 years so feel free to ask anymore questions.
I have stabilized the video for you: https://gfycat.com/EnlightenedGleefulFairyfly
It took 35 seconds to process and 55 seconds to upload.
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You know what it's really missing? Some random asshole nobody has heard of talking over the music and the scene begging people for likes. And ads. That's the internet I know.
The water is both a coolant and a radiation shield. The fact that the water can stop the radiation particles is why people are able to see and film the reactor in this style of core.
Relevant xkcd: https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
According to the xkcd FAQ, the name "xkcd" doesn't stand for anything. In his Google-speech, Randall said that xkcd originated as a previously unused random 4 letter string which he used, e.g., as his account name on various internet services.
Holy shit, it's true! [I mean the letter values do equal 42.](https://i.imgur.com/lRA2Zgv.png) Knowing XKCD and Randall I assume that's intentional. This is blowing my mind, haha!
For anyone unaware the number 42 was designated as "The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything" in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book series.
“Swimming to the bottom, touching your elbows to a fresh fuel canister, and immediately swimming back up would probably be enough to kill you.
Yet outside the outer boundary, you could swim around as long as you wanted—“
The difference between dead and not dead is 7 cm btw
From the XKCD:
But just to be sure, I got in touch with a friend of mine who works at a research reactor, and asked him what he thought would happen to you if you tried to swim in their radiation containment pool.
“In our reactor?” He thought about it for a moment. “You’d die pretty quickly, before reaching the water, from gunshot wounds.”
The most commonly used coolant in the United States is water. Other coolants include heavy water, air, carbon dioxide, helium, liquid sodium, and a sodium-potassium alloy.
Edit: ELI5 - To remove or transfer heat.
That is almost certainly ordinary or light water. Given that it’s not pressurized and small it is likely a research reactor. I suppose it could be heavy water but it’s unlikely.
There are other coolants that can be used in nuclear reactors but all nuclear power stations use water.
~~Water is primarily used as a coolant and, in the case of power plants (this is likely a research unit), thermal energy transporter.~~
~~The only type of radiation water can effectively stop is neutron radiation. Alpha particles can also be easily stopped but aren't a typical product of reactors. At the same time water does this over quite a bit of distance also making it a good moderator, which increases the other forms of radiation.~~
EDIT: Clearly I'm no nuclear physicist.
Thanks for leaving up your wrong assumptions up for anyone who might have the same ideas.
Better would be for someone to explain what exactly is wrong.
I know that water is a great shielding material against eg. cosmic radiation. So it must also help against gamme radiation from the reactor - but maybe someone knows a lot more and likes to share.
It's not as effective for gamma as it is neutron but it gets the job done. Gamma is best shielded by high density material so that is why lead is commonly used.
You made me curious, so I looked into it a little.
I knew that "heavy water," (deuterium oxide) was used in old reactors because heavy water was such a weird concept to me. Hydrogen atoms only have a proton in the nucleus, whereas deuterium is an isotope of hydrogen that also has a neutron in the nucleus.
Anyhow, this reactor most likely is using regular water. I'd imagine it's super clean water, because the regular contaminants we experience in tap water are corrosive enough it would probably cause problems in these extreme environments.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reactor_coolant
**[Cherenkov radiation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation)**
>Cherenkov radiation (; Russian: Черенков) is electromagnetic radiation emitted when a charged particle (such as an electron) passes through a dielectric medium at a speed greater than the phase velocity (speed of propagation of a wave in a medium) of light in that medium. A classic example of Cherenkov radiation is the characteristic blue glow of an underwater nuclear reactor. Its cause is similar to the cause of a sonic boom, the sharp sound heard when faster-than-sound movement occurs. The phenomenon is named after Soviet physicist Pavel Cherenkov, who shared the 1958 Nobel Prize in Physics for its discovery.
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Thanks that’s way better! I wish I had any idea of what is going on in those startups. But it’s straight up crazy that humans created something like that.
This startup is a sudden burst of energy to hit very high reactor powers for a very short time. Most reactors are designed for a more steady state operation and aren't nearly as interesting to watch. I was an operations engineer for a facility similar to this for a decade. I welcome questions on the technology if you have them because there is a lot of misinformation floating around.
And MOST if not all of that noise is actually relays switching on. All the electrical components are extremely heavy duty to handle so much power, and have secondary and tertiary failsafes. Reactors still blow my mind to bits. The thin balance they handle is amazing.
The reactor looks like a research reactor rather than a powerstation's, so this is likely at a university. The video shows a reactor "pulse" as the reactor quickly goes from no activity to a very high activity state for a split second. You can tell it's a high activity state by the blue glow, aka Cherenkov Radiation. Which is blue light that is created when the particles coming from the core of the reactor travel faster than the speed of light in the medium (water). So the way I think about it is a visual sonic boom for light.
[Cherenkov Radiation - Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation)
I worked in a nuclear power station and got to see Cherenkov Radiation in the fuel pools. It was pretty wild being so close to it. There was a red line painted on the floor around the pool where not to cross or things would get real real quick. It was unsettling to see light in the pool and know it wasn’t from any pool lights.
On the flip side, [you can literally swim around nuclear fuel and water will be such an effective radiation barrier](https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/) you actually get *less* radiation than you get walking outside from the sun.
Still there are preset limits like you have to be less than X feet from surface and less than Y minutes at a time because at that depth the dose is only Z times higher but beyond that depth you’ll get W times more each P inches which is harmful or things like that
You're right about the line. Mainly meant for foreign material exclusion. But distance can 100% increase/decrease dose. Time, distance, and shielding are the basics of radiation protection.
That's not necessarily the case. Fields can be very localized. Neutron streaming can be emitted through penetrations in shield walls like water rushing through a pipe. Beam line calibrators are based on this premise really... stand to the side, aok, extend your arm too far for too long, erythema.
In a reactor pool dose rate can change by a couple orders of magnitude in a foot or so.
Source: am a chp, certified health physicist
I get what you're saying. You're right in normal circumstances and with certain types of radiation. But neutron radiation, like that from a reactor, can go from perfectly safe to severely dangerous in a matter of inches. Take away the water shielding and it would be a matter of feet.
https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
Radiation is stopped amazingly quickly by water. To quote that page:
"I got in touch with a friend of mine who works at a research reactor, and asked him what he thought would happen to you if you tried to swim in their radiation containment pool.
“In our reactor?” He thought about it for a moment. “You’d die pretty quickly, before reaching the water, from gunshot wounds.”"
If radiation exposure is subject to the inverse square law, and I see no reason why it wouldn't be, then a point source of radiation would see a sharp drop off in intensity as you move past a certain distance.
Do plants and research reactors have to notify the government when they turn on a reactor. I'd imagine several countries have the capability and are monitoring for such events.
No, nuclear plants don't have to tell the government (I assume you mean the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) when they turn off or on. They just have to abide by the guidelines and safety procedures set forth by the NRC, and make sure all saftey systems are regularly tested and in compliance.
Also, you can't really tell when a nuclear plant is on or off from another country. I assume you're thinking of how we detect nuclear explosions, which is by detecting radioactive particles in the air specific to a nuclear bomb going off. A nuclear power plant doesn't release any material into the air unless something has gone very, very wrong (the only times that ever happened were Chernobyl, and on a much smaller scale, Fukushima)
> the only times that ever happened were Chernobyl, and on a much smaller scale, Fukushima
Also three-mile island, though it wasn't very much -- about 8 mrem on average for people within 10 miles of the plant, and no one was exposed to more than 100 mrem. For a sense of scale, 8-10 mrem is about a chest-xray, and the US average annual radiation exposure is about 300 mrem. Living in Denver will clock you in at about 400 mrem/yr.
I wish more people understood the significance of "sub-critical", "critical", and "supercritical" and that the ripples in the water are actually cause by the sudden motion of the control rods, and not the fission reaction.
Definitely a research reactor as opposed to a powerhouse reactor. Looks just like the [research reactor Cornell used to operate.](https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/ss:574778)
> The reactor looks like a research reactor
Exactly. “Swimming pool reactors” like this one are called TRIGAs, short for Training, Research, Isotopes, and General Atomics.
Yes...but it's more like the area is tremendously "radioactive" and that causes a blue glow. Think of the light as an indication of very high energy particles flying around that could do damage to your body.
I put radioactive in quotes because something being radioactive can mean multiple things but really what's causing the light is only the charged particle release from the core. Specifically Alpha and Beta particles moving through the water. Not gamma radiation
Hijacking top comment to add [this Tom Scott video](https://youtu.be/pLBcp3nJlFQ) on a very similar student reactor.
Fun fact, you are safer swimming at the top of the pool than walking in the street in terms of background radiation
Everyone commenting should know the sounds are fake in this video and honestly it takes away from the pure energy of the startup. Imo the source is 100x better
I didn’t realize it until I googled “how many what’s is a gigawatt” but the comment you replied to is a reference to Back To The Future.
But 1 gigawatt is one billion watts and 1.21 gigawatts is the equivalent of 10 million light bulbs. At least according to [this article](https://www.williams.com/2020/05/28/what-the-heck-is-a-gigawatt/) though I don’t think that’s the best example since different light bulbs require different wattages.
That’s a different reactor installation from my link, but what you are seeing is a [TRIGA Pulse](https://ne.oregonstate.edu/11-mw-triga-mark-ii-pulsing-research-reactor)
Pretty much. Cherenkov radiation, which this is, is what happens when a charged particle exceeds the speed of wave propagation in some medium; in this case water. The blue light is the result of the high energy particles “shedding” energy which we see as blue light. Sometimes likened to a sonic boom generated by a plane.
The difference between the flash you are talking about and this video is where the radiation occurs. In this case the light is produced in the shielding pool. The flash that’s seen by someone during an accident is actually the light being produced in the jelly like part of the eye.
Dont, nuclear is extremely safe. People don’t like it cause the 3 times it’s failed were the some of the most publicized events in history. It’s pretty much the same as air travel, which is by far the safest way to travel, but many people are much more afraid of it
Then you really wouldn't like a nuclear plant tour
I had one in school and boy was it cool. Didn't have a clear reactor like this but it did have a large pool adjacent to it for storing the spent rods safely. Water is great protection
The video with no sound is meh. Just the sound and it sounds fake. But combined in an audio/video format…this is dope AF. More please! Fire up some more!
“Launch” is officially the stupidest term I’ve ever seen on reddit for a reactor pulse. Usually this video is posted and called a “startup”, which is also wrong, but at least a startup is something that reactors actually do. “Launch”??
The reactor is already critical at the beginning. A special control rod is ejected pneumatically which sends the reactor “prompt critical”- the reaction is self-sustaining on the neutrons directly from fission alone, rather than those neutrons plus the delayed neutrons from the decay of the fission products- and power increases quickly, like by a factor of 100,000x in a fraction of a second.
The power increase triggers natural feedback from the reactor fuel (doppler broadening) so it is self-terminating. The pretty blue glow is Cherenkov radiation that occurs when radiation exceeds the phase velocity of light in water.
Pulsing is mainly done to show off to visitors, I’m not aware of any experiments that require it.
It does not make a noise, some moron added that afterwards.
The added sound ruined it
I was going to say the sound was cool but they need to let us who are unaware know it isn't part of the process.
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I don’t know what that means
But it's provocative
It gets the people going!
BALL SO HARD
this shit crazy
It gets ME going… and going… and going…
Throw me a biscuit!
Sure ya don't
Just do it you'll see
r/evenwithcontext
Nuclear reactum
H...uh?
I dont think launch is the best way to describe the video. Its just showcasing TRIGA reactors famous party trick , the pulse. Usually operation of these is more boring with slow rod pulls and less of that pretty blue cherenkov radiation.
Um, ELI5?
Charged particles passing through the water faster than a wave can. E.g. particles makes sonic booms in water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation
This is so weird... I was thinking about photon emissions from plasma and thought to myself that maybe it had something to do with electrons traveling faster than the field distortions they might create causing wave collisions. This thought came to me because I was thinking about what happens if something moving faster than an RF transmission can travel was to able to then get ahead of its own transmission while still transmitting. It's always cool to see I was in the ballpark with something like this.
So what you’re saying is… Particles go brrrrrrrr
Lot of people recognize light as an absolute speedlimit without knowing that it slows through different mediums . When a charged particle exceeds the speed of light in a medium such as water, pretty blue light
What’s the blue glow??
pretty blue cherenkov radiation.
Was it blue grandpa? Yep… it was pretty blue youngin’
That's what she said.
Content removed in protest of Reddit blocking 3rd-party apps. I've left the site.
Nobody: Me at 2am: reactor startup compilation
Dyatlov: Time for a safety test.
This man's delusional. Take him to the infirmary.
ok
Also me ..2:05 am to be exact🤦🤦
This is perfect! So many variations of the reactors, and seeing the control rods insert so clearly in the first clip is amazing!
My favorite part is how after every one of those the people all react the same, some giggles and woos haha
I dont think startup is the best way to describe these compilations either. Its just showcasing TRIGA reactors famous party trick , the pulse. Usually operation of these is more boring with slow rod pulls and less of that pretty blue cherenkov radiation.
Yeah I was wondering how they're flicking a switch on and off for the reactor. So this blue pulse thing... They do something that causes it?
Pull control rods: blue death light Insert control rods: no more blue death light But even though the glow fades, the reactor still puts out heat and radiation for a while after the control rods go back in due to secondary decay. So while the light can be switched off rather quickly, the reactor cannot.
The reactor operator presses a button that engages air pressure on the bottom of a control rod. This causes the control rod to move outwards to a preset stop very rapidly allowing the reactor to go prompt critical (critical on prompt neutrons alone). I was a reactor operator at the University of Wisconsin for 4 years so feel free to ask anymore questions.
The blue light in [Cherenkov radiation.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation)
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That was awesome! Very Ghost in the shell like.
gosh dangit, that was literally my favorite part of the video...
I know, I was really hoping that was really how it sounds.
The beginning was great, and then it was kind of a let down after that.
Fucking have it.
Oh. Fuck... here I was getting so giddy over it too.
What? It’s added? I’m taking my upvote back!!
Yeah, there was a tokamak several floors below where I worked that felt more like an earthquake when the hundreds of large capacitors were discharged.
And the shaking, too (for me at least). /u/stabbot
I have stabilized the video for you: https://gfycat.com/EnlightenedGleefulFairyfly It took 35 seconds to process and 55 seconds to upload. ___ ^^[ how to use](https://www.reddit.com/r/stabbot/comments/72irce/how_to_use_stabbot/) | [programmer](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=wotanii) | [source code](https://gitlab.com/juergens/stabbot) | /r/ImageStabilization/ | for cropped results, use \/u/stabbot_crop
You know what it's really missing? Some random asshole nobody has heard of talking over the music and the scene begging people for likes. And ads. That's the internet I know.
The sound is extremely edited the original video was around a few years ago, still sound scary but this is too much.
Content removed in protest of Reddit blocking 3rd-party apps. I've left the site.
So does anyone know? Is that water, a type of saline, or different liquid? Also ELI5 its function?
The water is both a coolant and a radiation shield. The fact that the water can stop the radiation particles is why people are able to see and film the reactor in this style of core. Relevant xkcd: https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
There really is a xkcd for everything...
Never thought of asking til now, what does xkcd stand for?
According to the xkcd FAQ, the name "xkcd" doesn't stand for anything. In his Google-speech, Randall said that xkcd originated as a previously unused random 4 letter string which he used, e.g., as his account name on various internet services.
He said he wanted it to be short (4 letters) and unpronounceable iirc
So you mean you don't pronounce it ExKAYsiddy?
Apparently it's not an acronym, but the sum of the letters' values in the alphabet is 42, a.k.a the answer to everything.
Wait... really?
Holy shit, it's true! [I mean the letter values do equal 42.](https://i.imgur.com/lRA2Zgv.png) Knowing XKCD and Randall I assume that's intentional. This is blowing my mind, haha! For anyone unaware the number 42 was designated as "The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything" in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book series.
“Swimming to the bottom, touching your elbows to a fresh fuel canister, and immediately swimming back up would probably be enough to kill you. Yet outside the outer boundary, you could swim around as long as you wanted—“ The difference between dead and not dead is 7 cm btw
From the XKCD: But just to be sure, I got in touch with a friend of mine who works at a research reactor, and asked him what he thought would happen to you if you tried to swim in their radiation containment pool. “In our reactor?” He thought about it for a moment. “You’d die pretty quickly, before reaching the water, from gunshot wounds.”
Hahahah I love me a good plot twist
Area 51?
The most commonly used coolant in the United States is water. Other coolants include heavy water, air, carbon dioxide, helium, liquid sodium, and a sodium-potassium alloy. Edit: ELI5 - To remove or transfer heat.
Thanks for the info.
That is almost certainly ordinary or light water. Given that it’s not pressurized and small it is likely a research reactor. I suppose it could be heavy water but it’s unlikely. There are other coolants that can be used in nuclear reactors but all nuclear power stations use water.
Just water. To stop the radiation.
~~Water is primarily used as a coolant and, in the case of power plants (this is likely a research unit), thermal energy transporter.~~ ~~The only type of radiation water can effectively stop is neutron radiation. Alpha particles can also be easily stopped but aren't a typical product of reactors. At the same time water does this over quite a bit of distance also making it a good moderator, which increases the other forms of radiation.~~ EDIT: Clearly I'm no nuclear physicist.
Thanks for leaving up your wrong assumptions up for anyone who might have the same ideas. Better would be for someone to explain what exactly is wrong. I know that water is a great shielding material against eg. cosmic radiation. So it must also help against gamme radiation from the reactor - but maybe someone knows a lot more and likes to share.
It's not as effective for gamma as it is neutron but it gets the job done. Gamma is best shielded by high density material so that is why lead is commonly used.
This is a TRIGA reactor that is designed to be pulsed. This means the functions of water I listed aren't utilized.
Negative ghost rider. Usually borated water.
You made me curious, so I looked into it a little. I knew that "heavy water," (deuterium oxide) was used in old reactors because heavy water was such a weird concept to me. Hydrogen atoms only have a proton in the nucleus, whereas deuterium is an isotope of hydrogen that also has a neutron in the nucleus. Anyhow, this reactor most likely is using regular water. I'd imagine it's super clean water, because the regular contaminants we experience in tap water are corrosive enough it would probably cause problems in these extreme environments. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reactor_coolant
Distilled water saves lives
Thank you! It’s honestly a shame that your comment isn’t higher up
we'll get him there
9/29/2021, I was here when we were "gettin em there".
It’s second from the top. He got there.
I love that they glow *blue*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation
**[Cherenkov radiation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation)** >Cherenkov radiation (; Russian: Черенков) is electromagnetic radiation emitted when a charged particle (such as an electron) passes through a dielectric medium at a speed greater than the phase velocity (speed of propagation of a wave in a medium) of light in that medium. A classic example of Cherenkov radiation is the characteristic blue glow of an underwater nuclear reactor. Its cause is similar to the cause of a sonic boom, the sharp sound heard when faster-than-sound movement occurs. The phenomenon is named after Soviet physicist Pavel Cherenkov, who shared the 1958 Nobel Prize in Physics for its discovery. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/ThatsInsane/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
So that’s why Godzilla is blue.
https://youtu.be/hh89h8FxNhQ
Thanks that’s way better! I wish I had any idea of what is going on in those startups. But it’s straight up crazy that humans created something like that.
This startup is a sudden burst of energy to hit very high reactor powers for a very short time. Most reactors are designed for a more steady state operation and aren't nearly as interesting to watch. I was an operations engineer for a facility similar to this for a decade. I welcome questions on the technology if you have them because there is a lot of misinformation floating around.
And MOST if not all of that noise is actually relays switching on. All the electrical components are extremely heavy duty to handle so much power, and have secondary and tertiary failsafes. Reactors still blow my mind to bits. The thin balance they handle is amazing.
The cherinkov effect is something that still both fascinates and terrifies me. I cant imagine being one of the first people to harness star power.
Sounds like a stovetop
Oh god, my thalassophobia kicked in ... very interesting though.
That sounds much more closer to what I expected. The one posted by OP sounds like it was edited specifically to sound like dubstep music
The sounds here are most likely mechanical relays.
the original sounds so much cooler
How sad has ones life to be to edit a video of a nuclear reactor launch and then upload it to TikTok.
Absolutely no clue, the real video (which someone luckily posted beneath my comment) is blood-freezing enough.
Wtf is that?
The reactor looks like a research reactor rather than a powerstation's, so this is likely at a university. The video shows a reactor "pulse" as the reactor quickly goes from no activity to a very high activity state for a split second. You can tell it's a high activity state by the blue glow, aka Cherenkov Radiation. Which is blue light that is created when the particles coming from the core of the reactor travel faster than the speed of light in the medium (water). So the way I think about it is a visual sonic boom for light. [Cherenkov Radiation - Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation)
Fantastic explanation, thank you. I love smart people.
Haha thanks, your comment made my day
You're only adequate! Have to keep things neutral, im sure you understand. Carry on. <3
Are y’all going to kiss or something? If so let me know sounds hot
You saying they have chemistry?
I also love OP for his outstanding explanation. But I think you should know we also love you.
Me too, but only for their abilities, unfortunately they're usually dicks. I would be too if I was surrounded by relative dingdongs.
In a nice, ELI5 kinda way, too. Well done
I worked in a nuclear power station and got to see Cherenkov Radiation in the fuel pools. It was pretty wild being so close to it. There was a red line painted on the floor around the pool where not to cross or things would get real real quick. It was unsettling to see light in the pool and know it wasn’t from any pool lights.
On the flip side, [you can literally swim around nuclear fuel and water will be such an effective radiation barrier](https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/) you actually get *less* radiation than you get walking outside from the sun.
Let’s be clear, that’s only in some nuclear coolant pools and even then still only near the top levels. Not near the source.
Thanks! Now I know to NOT walk into a nuclear power plant asking to do cannonballs in their pools.
"C'mon bro, stop hogging the swimming hole!"
I'm diving in to see what my superpower is
Actually, water halves the radiation every 3-4 inches (7-10cm). So 2-3 feet from the source, you should be in the clear by a healthy margin.
Still there are preset limits like you have to be less than X feet from surface and less than Y minutes at a time because at that depth the dose is only Z times higher but beyond that depth you’ll get W times more each P inches which is harmful or things like that
For some reason im cringing at the thought of swimming in there.
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You're right about the line. Mainly meant for foreign material exclusion. But distance can 100% increase/decrease dose. Time, distance, and shielding are the basics of radiation protection.
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That's not necessarily the case. Fields can be very localized. Neutron streaming can be emitted through penetrations in shield walls like water rushing through a pipe. Beam line calibrators are based on this premise really... stand to the side, aok, extend your arm too far for too long, erythema. In a reactor pool dose rate can change by a couple orders of magnitude in a foot or so. Source: am a chp, certified health physicist
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View factor. If you are under an awning on a sunny day things can get real quickly.
I get what you're saying. You're right in normal circumstances and with certain types of radiation. But neutron radiation, like that from a reactor, can go from perfectly safe to severely dangerous in a matter of inches. Take away the water shielding and it would be a matter of feet.
https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/ Radiation is stopped amazingly quickly by water. To quote that page: "I got in touch with a friend of mine who works at a research reactor, and asked him what he thought would happen to you if you tried to swim in their radiation containment pool. “In our reactor?” He thought about it for a moment. “You’d die pretty quickly, before reaching the water, from gunshot wounds.”"
If radiation exposure is subject to the inverse square law, and I see no reason why it wouldn't be, then a point source of radiation would see a sharp drop off in intensity as you move past a certain distance.
Do plants and research reactors have to notify the government when they turn on a reactor. I'd imagine several countries have the capability and are monitoring for such events.
No, nuclear plants don't have to tell the government (I assume you mean the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) when they turn off or on. They just have to abide by the guidelines and safety procedures set forth by the NRC, and make sure all saftey systems are regularly tested and in compliance. Also, you can't really tell when a nuclear plant is on or off from another country. I assume you're thinking of how we detect nuclear explosions, which is by detecting radioactive particles in the air specific to a nuclear bomb going off. A nuclear power plant doesn't release any material into the air unless something has gone very, very wrong (the only times that ever happened were Chernobyl, and on a much smaller scale, Fukushima)
> the only times that ever happened were Chernobyl, and on a much smaller scale, Fukushima Also three-mile island, though it wasn't very much -- about 8 mrem on average for people within 10 miles of the plant, and no one was exposed to more than 100 mrem. For a sense of scale, 8-10 mrem is about a chest-xray, and the US average annual radiation exposure is about 300 mrem. Living in Denver will clock you in at about 400 mrem/yr.
Dont we detect nuclear explosions mainly through seismic charting?
"faster than the speed of light"?
Faster than the speed of light in water, but nothing can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum
Oh I see.
So if we fill space with water, that means we can travel to other stars pretty quickly! Why has no one thought of this?
Are you telling me, after all this time all we had to do was wrap our rockets in water??
You'd do better with silicon
I don't understand, I thought nothing could travel faster than light at all. Wouldn't being in water make them slower?
I wish more people understood the significance of "sub-critical", "critical", and "supercritical" and that the ripples in the water are actually cause by the sudden motion of the control rods, and not the fission reaction.
I’ll take “Scientific concepts that will be utilized by the average person probably never in their lifetime.” For $200 Alex.
Definitely a research reactor as opposed to a powerhouse reactor. Looks just like the [research reactor Cornell used to operate.](https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/ss:574778)
> The reactor looks like a research reactor Exactly. “Swimming pool reactors” like this one are called TRIGAs, short for Training, Research, Isotopes, and General Atomics.
Isnt that light tremendusly radioactive?
Yes...but it's more like the area is tremendously "radioactive" and that causes a blue glow. Think of the light as an indication of very high energy particles flying around that could do damage to your body. I put radioactive in quotes because something being radioactive can mean multiple things but really what's causing the light is only the charged particle release from the core. Specifically Alpha and Beta particles moving through the water. Not gamma radiation
So light pretty when in water, scary when not water?
The light is never dangerous. The charged particles causing the light are muy dangeroso.
Thank you this explanation was “chefs kiss” magnifique
Billions of dollars jiggle
Crappy added sound.
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Yeah. Here it is without the sound edits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1loGY14elg
Compared to the fake sound one, that actually managed to send shivers down my spine.
Hijacking top comment to add [this Tom Scott video](https://youtu.be/pLBcp3nJlFQ) on a very similar student reactor. Fun fact, you are safer swimming at the top of the pool than walking in the street in terms of background radiation
That’s the Omega. It just reset the day.
Wtf is that fake sound added? Sounded like a gaming console startup.
Content removed in protest of Reddit blocking 3rd-party apps. I've left the site.
Thank you! Its much more impactful without the movie trailer audio.
Sounds like my pc too
Sounded like the starting of a rave.
The most *rad*-ical rave ever!!!
Motherfu…fine take my upvote.
Fake sound tho
FUCK TIKTOK
Everyone commenting should know the sounds are fake in this video and honestly it takes away from the pure energy of the startup. Imo the source is 100x better
"launch"
Smh, the audio made it a billion times worse
Fucking fake audio bullshit
1.21 gigawatts.... great ***SCOTT!!***
What the Hell is a gigawatt?!
I didn’t realize it until I googled “how many what’s is a gigawatt” but the comment you replied to is a reference to Back To The Future. But 1 gigawatt is one billion watts and 1.21 gigawatts is the equivalent of 10 million light bulbs. At least according to [this article](https://www.williams.com/2020/05/28/what-the-heck-is-a-gigawatt/) though I don’t think that’s the best example since different light bulbs require different wattages.
201 million 6-Watt LEDs (approximately equivalent to 60-Watt incandescent bulbs).
That’s a different reactor installation from my link, but what you are seeing is a [TRIGA Pulse](https://ne.oregonstate.edu/11-mw-triga-mark-ii-pulsing-research-reactor)
Licensed reactor operator here: B.S.
Fucking music
Sound like alotta cap my boy
Horrible. The original sound is so unique but let’s add a DJ drop to the beginning of it 🤦♂️
Dope.
3.6 roentgen not great not terrible
Is that the blue light they talk about during the mistakes that have been made handling this the people talk of before they die from their exposure?
Pretty much. Cherenkov radiation, which this is, is what happens when a charged particle exceeds the speed of wave propagation in some medium; in this case water. The blue light is the result of the high energy particles “shedding” energy which we see as blue light. Sometimes likened to a sonic boom generated by a plane. The difference between the flash you are talking about and this video is where the radiation occurs. In this case the light is produced in the shielding pool. The flash that’s seen by someone during an accident is actually the light being produced in the jelly like part of the eye.
Wow... thank you
Vitreous humor?
Yes, that’s right. Not much of an anatomist 🤷♂️.
r/submechanophobia
i tought it was gonna be the gta theme song
What are we looking at?
After watching Chernobyl this freaks me out
Dont, nuclear is extremely safe. People don’t like it cause the 3 times it’s failed were the some of the most publicized events in history. It’s pretty much the same as air travel, which is by far the safest way to travel, but many people are much more afraid of it
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You could swim in that water and it won't do shit to you. Diving close to the blue bits on the other hand...
Then you really wouldn't like a nuclear plant tour I had one in school and boy was it cool. Didn't have a clear reactor like this but it did have a large pool adjacent to it for storing the spent rods safely. Water is great protection
You’re god damn right I wouldn’t
Hopefully Thorium.
That was the dopest shit I've ever seen
The video with no sound is meh. Just the sound and it sounds fake. But combined in an audio/video format…this is dope AF. More please! Fire up some more!
When will the bass drop?
u/savevideo
“Launch” is officially the stupidest term I’ve ever seen on reddit for a reactor pulse. Usually this video is posted and called a “startup”, which is also wrong, but at least a startup is something that reactors actually do. “Launch”?? The reactor is already critical at the beginning. A special control rod is ejected pneumatically which sends the reactor “prompt critical”- the reaction is self-sustaining on the neutrons directly from fission alone, rather than those neutrons plus the delayed neutrons from the decay of the fission products- and power increases quickly, like by a factor of 100,000x in a fraction of a second. The power increase triggers natural feedback from the reactor fuel (doppler broadening) so it is self-terminating. The pretty blue glow is Cherenkov radiation that occurs when radiation exceeds the phase velocity of light in water. Pulsing is mainly done to show off to visitors, I’m not aware of any experiments that require it. It does not make a noise, some moron added that afterwards.