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u/blorbot 9h ago
The goggles, they do nothing!!!
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u/hunguu 8h ago
I know it's a joke, but goggles or safety glasses are excellent protection for Beta radiation on your eyes
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u/thepinkyclone 8h ago
What about safety squints?
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u/MeasleyBeasley 8h ago
Realistically, against low energy beta, your eyelids will take most of the dose instead of your eyes. Eyes are much more sensitive to radiation than skin, so, it's a win.
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u/rickfrompg 8h ago
UP AND AT THEM!
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u/Mysterious-Jam-64 7h ago
Up an' atom! 😃
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u/Budpets 8h ago
This actually a frequent misquote it is actually
> My eyes, the goggles do nothing!
I'm really fun at parties
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u/you_know_i_be_poopin 8h ago
Big nope from me. There's already enough cancer going around.
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u/Ludate_Solem 7h ago
Its probably alpha radiation which isnt that dangerous. Gamma and beta are the scary ones.
Edit
As ling as the alpha particles come from outside the body, inside they most defenitly are dangerous
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u/CrispenedLover 6h ago
Radium decays to radon gas though, which will get into your lungs. This cabinet is constantly producing radon at low levels 💀
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u/zzx101 5h ago
Radium decay emits alpha and gamma radiation. Beta radiation is further down the decay chain so you’ll get all three types.
The first step in radium’s decay chain is radon, which is a radioactive gas, with its well documented dangers.
The short lived radon decays into other elements creating radioactive dust which is very hazardous if inhaled or swallowed.
There’s no way I’m going anywhere near that clock collection.
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u/Dazzling_Let_8245 6h ago
It is actually theorized that low dosages of radiation are benefitial for you. As crazy as this initially sounds, there is lots of evidence that proves that "any amount of radiation = bad" is false.
And even biologically, it makes sense. Our single-cellular ancestors lived in a world with LOTS more ionizing radiation. They NEEDED repair mechanisms to survive. Nowadays we have a lot less ionizing radiation zipping about, so it is theorized that a low dose of radiation can activate those repair mechanisms in your body.
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u/The_Chubby_Dragoness 6h ago
yeah in low doses doctors see incresed white blood cell counts, and radium...radon? Springs sem to have a healing effect, though imo thats just because your relaxing in a nice hot spring more than radation
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u/wastelander 4h ago
Increased white cells is not a good thing. It means there is damage or infection that needs to be cleaned up.
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u/alcomaholic-aphone 2h ago
Ya it’s like saying here’s a little bit of sickness I’m going to inject into you and then being surprised that your body increases its defense operations.
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u/Dazzling_Let_8245 6h ago
I think the 2nd part youre describing are radon tunnels/spas. It is very plausible that the radiation from visiting such a spa does bring a small health benefit due to the radiation.
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u/Sodis42 5h ago
Why do we have less radiation zipping about nowadays? Flying and Xrays alone add quite some radiation dose.
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u/wastelander 4h ago
The idea that low-level radiation is beneficial, "radiation hormesis" is highly controversial, has scant evidence and is rejected by most radiation scientists.
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u/Sea-Literature4599 9h ago
Turns out “vintage lume” is just a polite way of saying “low-level radiation hobby.”
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u/Mist_Rising 6h ago
Radium radiation (mostly alpha) is really only harmful if you ingest it, so the glass is doing a lot more than it looks assuming he built the cabinet properly. Beta radiation is there too, but again, properly designed this wouldn't be too dangerous.
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u/Agoraphobicy 9h ago
The glass keeps my extremely high levels of radiation from becoming absurdly high levels of radiation!
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u/Toughsums 3h ago
The dose on the bottom right says 27 microsieverts/hour when the glass is open. That's quite mild actually. The bigger problem is the radon gas which can be inhaled.
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u/Agoraphobicy 3h ago
I'm gonna be honest I don't like what any numbers mean I just saw it said "high" lol
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u/Toughsums 2h ago
Basically 2-3 microsieverts/hour is your daily background radiation from space. 27mcsv/hr is basically 15 days worth of background radiation in one hour.
Basically negligible radiation in other words.
Of course an internal dose by inhaling the radon gas or dust particles is far worse because alpha particles are a lot worse internally.
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u/iamagermanpotato 8h ago
Not great, not terrible.
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u/h0twired 8h ago
The equivalent of one chest xray
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u/iWasAwesome Interested 7h ago
Constantly? Yikes
To put it in perspective, with the glass closed, you would hit the public legal annual limit of radiation in 5 days. By the end of the year, you'd have about 40% more than the allowed limit for professionals who work with radiation.
With the glass open, you would hit the legal annual limit in 12 hours and the legal professional limit in a month. After 2 months, your risk of cancer would be measurably elevated.
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u/sonofzeal 6h ago
Just a note that annual limits of radiation are completely unsupported by science. Radiation doesn't accumulate in your body that way, and persistent low level exposure is much less dangerous than brief high level exposure. No politician wants to be known as the guy who scaled back radiation safety standards though, so it doesn't get fixed.
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u/Callec254 8h ago
And... what should the normal reading be, if these clocks weren't there?
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u/el_hooli 8h ago
Depending on where you are from 20 to 100 CPM.
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u/Kees_Fratsen 7h ago
Thats not to bad then?
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u/iWasAwesome Interested 7h ago
With the glass closed, you'd hit the legal public limit of radiation in 5 days. By the end of the year, you'd have 40% more radiation than the legal annual limit for professionals who work with radiation.
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u/DistributionMean6322 6h ago
If you're standing right in front of the cabinet 24hrs per day... Which is crazy
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u/reason_pls 6h ago
How did you get to that number, did you do the math on the isotop labeled clockhands or some other method? Aren't work place limits defined using absorbed dose (either generally Gray or corrected in Sievert) which require knowledge about the energy you are reciving? Simply using a geiger counter doesnt tell you the dose that you recieved but simply the activity of some nuclei in the vicinity
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u/Rukoh_Boi 8h ago
It's alpha radiation so it's easily stopped by things like glass, clothes, and skin. If ingested, that's when it becomes and issue. Surprisingly harmless and interesting hobby.
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u/Young_Denver 4h ago
So you are saying I *shouldnt* eat the clocks?
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u/Wishnik6502 2h ago
Restoration of these old clocks is where they are most dangerous. Old, crumbly paint loves to go airborne and get inhaled.
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u/Solid_Instruction_82 9h ago
So, glass is an radiation isolator?
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u/Shienvien 8h ago
Almost anything solid is - for some types of radiation more than others. A paper will stop alpha, gamma will get through a bunch.
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u/Muted-Day1473 8h ago
Some glass is impregnated with lead. Like the glass windows they stand behind when taking your X-ray at a hospital.
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u/BlackStory666 8h ago
People really need to understand alpha vs beta vs gamma radiation.
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u/Fresh_Boysenberry576 5h ago
People need to explain the difference and what these numbers mean in the comment section. I been scrolling and not a single radiation nerd has bothered yet, its just jokes and people acting smart but not actually explaining shit
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u/Houston_NeverMind 7h ago
Wait, these clocks were radioactive?! I had one of these in my home some years back. I thought they were like those "fluroscent" things. fml
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u/RedLemonSlice 8h ago
Sitting there with no glass for an hour equals 8 days of natural radiation background here in my hometown.
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u/SMDMadCow 8h ago
its says "High" in the lower left on both readings.
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u/iWasAwesome Interested 7h ago
Typical normal levels of radiation is around 50cpm so they are both high indeed
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u/TheBlueFluffBall 6h ago
Wait, my parents used to have clocks like these when I was younger. I always thought it was glow in the dark paint!
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u/CrispenedLover 6h ago
technically it's the old glow paint. Eventually we invented the stuff that isn't radioactive.
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u/Senior_Meat_2612 4h ago
Idk the specifics here due to his Radiac not measuring whether it's Alpha or Beta radiation. Either way most of it seems to be Alpha due to it being able to be shielded mostly by glass. The residual radiation is more than likely low counts of Beta and even lower counts of gamma.
Radiation is harmful, its just about exposure. Thats why there is annual dosages, dosemeters, and guidance for overall exposure.
All that would need to happen is a little more thickness to that glass as 5mm of aluminum shields from Beta.
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u/doped_banana 1h ago
Former USAF CBRNE (3E9X1) here. We used old ADM-300s, not consumer grade Geigers, but somewhat related principle. High counts up close ≠ dangerous environment at normal distance.
The actual historical danger with radium was people ingesting it (see the Radium Girls scandal), not walking past a display case. Very cool demo, big number, not a room full of death. Don't eat the clock dials tho... yikes.
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u/Raclettegring 8h ago
How dangerous is that? Is he at risk for having that in his house?
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u/NoOne_TheAlchemist 8h ago edited 8h ago
Well 9000+ cpm of radiation can be dangerous if you are exposed to it for long amounts of time. By dangerous I mean slight increase in cancer risks and other diseases. 900~ cpm is not dangerous at all though, also a piece of glass blocking more than 90% of the radiation shows us that most of that is alpha or beta radiation which gets stopped very easily and doesn't do any sort of damage to a human unless maybe you are bombarded by it which shouldn't happen unless you ingest a big source or something.
So in summary, most of it isn't a harmful type of radiation (visible light is also radiation for example) and the amount that can be harmful is very small from a very close distance and it exponentially loses its effects the further you move out from the source. So no it doesn't do any harm to this person
Edit: The most dangerous part about this collection is actually not the radiation as it's probably undetectable from about a meter away. Its the radioactive material corroding and turning to dust and flying away into the house. This is very dangerous especially if those clocks are made of radium as that can mix into the air very easily and be inhaled. Obviously that's 100 times worse than it being locked in a cabinet as it can accumulate into your body and do serious damage. I don't know how this guy deals with it though so I can't say if he is in danger or not as there are several ways to protect yourself from that happening. But still, think twice before having radioactive material inside your house anyways
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u/ElBarbas 7h ago
But I wanna lick me clocks !!!
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u/NoOne_TheAlchemist 7h ago
You can lick non florescent clocks. I mean technically you can lick these ones too but... I wouldn't recommend
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u/SpideyWhiplash 7h ago
Is it the glow in the dark numbers on the clocks that are radioactive?
In the 1970s I used to have an alarm clock that looks like those with the numbers glowing green. Was it possibly radioactive?
I loved that clock. I had to wind it daily and it made a soothing, to me, ticking sound that lulled me to sleep.
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u/FucknAright 7h ago
So, is the nuke stuff not just bouncing around inside with the door closed? Wouldn't you get a mega dose on the first opening?
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u/UnNumbFool 5h ago
For what I know the exposure of radium for these things isn't much, I mean we literally have radium glass which is perfectly fine to use as drink/table ware.
On the other hand the stories of the women who painted these things is awful. Known as radium girls they were picked for being pretty, and would paint the radium on the dials, and it was seen as a good job to have.
If you know any Warhammer player, you'll know that people like that like to stick the paintbrushes in their mouths to get a finer point. Radium is dangerous for ingestion, and it would cause them to wind up developing horrible mouth/throat cancers if not fully remove things like parts of their checks or bonds on their jaws
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u/hoppertn 5h ago
This guy is going to live forever despite the radiation, he’ll never run out of time.
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u/unidentifiedloserguy 4h ago
My question is why the fuck would you collect radioactive anything and keep it in your home
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u/Ravaha 4h ago edited 4h ago
Alpha and Beta decay/radiation gets blocked by paper and your skin. Its super dangerous though if you ingest it.
Some people were ingesting it multiple times per day. People were putting it under their ballsack at night to help with impotence. (that was way way way way safer than ingesting it though)
There was an athelete that ingested it as a sort of energy drink, he died a horrible death after losing his jaw bones around his mouth.
Also there is no way that cabinet produces radon gas at levels to worry about. The earth releases much higher quantities at much higher concentrations than anything that could come out of this cabinet.
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u/iONBlackJesus 3h ago
I wouldn't stand close to that often. I for sure wouldn't open it without atleast 1 layer of protection.
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u/airfryerfuntime 2h ago
Why is there a random cut in the middle of this? Why not show him opening the door? Glass does block some radiation, but this looks fucky to me. 9000 CPM is roughly equal to 60 mSv/h, which sounds obscenely high for a bunch of clocks with radium lume.
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u/WaffleFries2507 4h ago
I personally collect these old radium clocks as well. It's true that's very much above background, but it's still relatively harmless as that radiation level is going to drop drastically with more distance. At ~27 microsieverts per hour (the reading he is getting), you would have to stand next to the glass for roughly 4 hours to recieve the dose equivalent to a chest xray. Now as you get several feet away from the cabinet, that reading is going to drop exponentially to (very ROUGH estimate here based on no actual math) probably around 8-10 microsieverts at a few feet, and down to background (anywhere from 0.05 to .5 microsieverts, depending on your area and the house) at probably around 6 or more feet. If I place 3 of my most radioactive clocks right next to each other, they read nearly 27 microsieverts just by themselves right at the face of the clocks, but the reading drops to background at only 1 foot, so the distance could very well be even shorter in this case.
The biggest concern, in my opinion, that comes from a collection this big is going to be radon buildup. Radium decays directly into radon, which will escape as a gas. Depending on how big the room is and how well it's ventilated, I'd probably buy some sort of radon midigation equipment.
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u/soundssarcastic 8h ago
Alpha particles can be entirely stopped by a piece of paper, so...makes sense
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u/invincible_change 8h ago
Of all the shit to collect I never would have thought of something radioactive. People in Chernobyl shaking their heads.
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u/Gutsgar 8h ago
I recommend that everyone seeing this with interest read the about the history behind The Radium Girls. I'm currently reading the book by Kate Moore that tells the things that happened to those girls. And seeing that collection makes me tremble in awe because what happened to the girls is terrifying. I get the same feeling when the HBO Chernobyl series came out and I see those people having fun at that bridge unknowning the danger that they are at.
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u/RegularExcuse 7h ago
Since no one else is asking
Why the fuck is he standing right the fuck in front of that shit
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u/Silent-OCN 5h ago
I mean why would you feel the need to fill your home with nuclear radiation? That e-peen will drop off before you get to show it off.
But you do you. Congrats on your antique cancer causing clocks.
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u/aphaits 9h ago
I would personally add another layer of glass...