Radioactivity – The Episodic Table of Elements

drawing of the landscape of thorns

93. Neptunium: Great Expectations

August 22, 2024

6:00 am

5 Comments on 93. Neptunium: Great Expectations

Astronomy, Benito Mussolini, Berkeley Edwin McMillan, Bruno Pontecorvo, Clemens Winkler, Coal Power, Deep Time, Dmitri Mendeleev, Edoardo Amaldi, Emilio Segre, Energy, Enrico Fermi, Ettore Majorana, Etymology, Fascism, Finland, Fission, Franco Rasetti, Fritz Strassman, Germany, Hans Rudolph Hermann, Ida Tacke, Indigenous Americans, Isotopes, Italy, Japan, Lise Meitner, Nazis, Nevada, Nobel Prizes, Nuclear Power, Nuclear Weapons, Orso Mario Corbino, Otto Frisch, Otto Hahn, Philip H. Abelson, Radioactivity, Sweden, Synthetic Elements, Tennessee, Tsunamis, United States, Walter Noddack, Women In Science, World War II

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To the person who said, “the episodes are never too long,” I’m terribly sorry.

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92. Uranium: Two Untold Tales (Live At Harvard)

May 29, 2023

6:00 am

19 Comments on 92. Uranium: Two Untold Tales (Live At Harvard)

Alsos, Belgium, Church Rock, Congo, Edwin Kemble, Espionage, France, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, George Kistiakowsky, Georgius Agricola, Germany, Harvard, Indigenous Americans, Italy, Leslie Groves, Mining, Moe Berg, Navajo Nation, Nazis, Nobel Prizes, Nuclear Accidents, Nuclear Power, Nuclear Weapons, Otto Hahn, Paracelsus, Radioactivity, Samuel Goudsmit, Shinkolobwe, The Manhattan Project, Three Mile Island, United States, Werner Heisenberg, World War II

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America’s worst radioactive accident isn’t Three Mile Island, and the Nazi nuclear physicist wasn’t assassinated by the famous baseball player.

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The exterior of Primo Autobody Repair shop.

90. Thorium: Bright Lights, Big City

February 22, 2022

8:30 am

19 Comments on 90. Thorium: Bright Lights, Big City

Alsos, Alvin Weinberg, Auergesellschaft, Candoluminescence, Carl Auer von Welsbach, Illumination, India, Jons Jacob Berzelius, Leslie Groves, Mythology, Nazis, New York City, Nuclear Power, Nuclear Weapons, Oak Ridge National Labs, Radioactivity, The Manhattan Project

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Sure, thorium could provide practically limitless clean energy, but then we couldn’t build weapons of mass destruction.

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Nuclear fuel plates submerged in water, showing the blue light of Cherenkov radiation.

89. Actinium: The Windup… And The Pitchblende

November 8, 2021

6:00 am

19 Comments on 89. Actinium: The Windup… And The Pitchblende

André-Louis Debierne, Cherenkov Radiation, Etymology, Friedrich Oskar Giesel, Glenn T. Seaborg, Medicine, Mineralogy, Mining, Pitchblende, Radioactivity, Speed Of Light, The Simpsons

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We all know that radioactive rocks glow in the dark, except they actually don’t, except for when they actually do.

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