Did people use uranium before nukes?

[The Last Conformist]

Well, the glass I saw on television a couple of years back (a program about the Curies, IIRC) was made with uranium salts about 100 years ago, and had to be locked up with other radioactive waste.

Two possible explanations come to mind; the old glass used much higher concentrations of the stuff, and paranoid Swedish safety limits.

 

[Gladi]

Two possible explanations come to mind; the old glass used much higher concentrations of the stuff, and paranoid Swedish safety limits.

Actually Swedes are not that paranoid, we used the loophole Swedes put in EU regulations to be able to go on with our glass. (AFAIK Swedes put semi-precious stones into a radiation to improve their lustre).

But nowadays even you can buy your own uranium... glass.

 

[mrtn]

Two possible explanations come to mind; the old glass used much higher concentrations of the stuff, and paranoid Swedish safety limits.

They weren't Swedish.

 

[Vietcong]

it was used to collour glass, and things of that such. allso ther whear thing called uranium baths. a bath with lil bits of urnium in it was saposed to be health..

 

[Sophie 378]

a bath with lil bits of urnium in it was saposed to be health..

Yeah, there also used to be electricity baths for livening you up or something ! I think (I may well be wrong on this) Maggie used to have them ...

 

[SeleucusNicator]

Depleted Uranium is used in bullets.

 

[The Yankee]

I seem to remember a James Bond movie where Bond tested a Giger counter on his (uranium glowing) watch. It's amazing they actually thought that wearing something radioactive was OK. I mean... Duh!

They used to think putting asbestos into everything was okay too.

 

[brennan]

Henri Bequerel discoved X-rays (the first known form of 'emanation' or radiation) when he left a photographic sheet under some uranium salts and found it had been exposed overnight despite being in a closed envelope.

Back when radiation was discovered they thought it was good for you - people had x-rays as a form of therapy!

The radioactive paint contained radium. It was widely used to paint glow-in-the-dark clock faces and instrument dials up until the 50's.

Depleted uranium shells are used as armour piercing (anti-tank) weapons. Depleted means that a specific isotope (U-235, highly radioactive and used for weapons etc) is removed from it beforehand. The density of the element makes it ideal for punching through armour.

Use of uranium and plutonium in weapons predates their use in reactors, for energy production.

 

[Speedo]

I don't know if uranium was actually ever used for watch faces and etc, but I believe most modern ones should be using tritium.

 

[nonconformist]

I don't know if uranium was actually ever used for watch faces and etc, but I believe most modern ones should be using tritium.

Most modern watches use tritium?

 

[Padma]

Tritium has too shor a half-life, and is too ... "lively" ... for watches.

We use it as part of the *trigger* for weapons.

 

[nonconformist]

But isn't tritium Heavy water?
I.e the H molecules ahve 3 neutrons?

 

[Speedo]

Tritium has too shor a half-life, and is too ... "lively" ... for watches.

I thought it was used on watch hands, gunsights and etc? Minute quantities, of course.

But isn't tritium Heavy water?
I.e the H molecules ahve 3 neutrons?

Deuterium is H-2, tritium is H-3. (H-2)2O is "heavy water."

 

[Renata]

I also remember reading about an abandoned mine somewhere in the northern Great Plains or Rockies that was highly radioactive. (I suppose from uranium; can't remember.) People used to (some still do) travel to the mine to treat rheumatoid arthritis.

 

[nonconformist]

Deuterium is H-2, tritium is H-3. (H-2)2O is "heavy water."

But isn't tritium a gas?

 

[Renata]

Technically, tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen -- it's two neutrons, an electron and a proton. You can't really call it a gas, any more than you could call a single atom of gold a solid. I think you could call hydrogen gas that contained only or mostly H-3 atoms 'tritium', if you were speaking loosely.

Heavy water is something totally different, and I'm not sure how you're confusing it with tritium. It's simply water (H2O) with its single-proton hydrogen atoms (H-1) replaced by proton+neutron deuterium (H-2). Deuterium is not radioactive, therefore neither is heavy water. The association of heavy water with radioactivity is due to its use in some nuclear reactors, but it doesn't generate the radioactivity itself, it just doesn't absorb some radioactive particles the way that normal water does.

 

[nonconformist]

Heavy water is something totally different, and I'm not sure how you're confusing it with tritium. It's simply water (H2O) with its single-proton hydrogen atoms (H-1) replaced by proton+neutron deuterium (H-2). Deuterium is not radioactive, therefore neither is heavy water. The association of heavy water with radioactivity is due to its use in some nuclear reactors, but it doesn't generate the radioactivity itself, it just doesn't absorb some radioactive particles the way that normal water does.

I'm confusing it because I'm confusing the number of neutrons in each substance.

But thanks for the explaination

 

[Verbose]

Henri Bequerel discoved X-rays (the first known form of 'emanation' or radiation) when he left a photographic sheet under some uranium salts and found it had been exposed overnight despite being in a closed envelope.

Nope, that was the German Konrad Röntgen.
Which is why Germans, Scandinavians etc. call "X-rays", "Röntgen-rays".

 

[thetrooper]

Deuterium is H-2, tritium is H-3. (H-2)2O is "heavy water."

D is a common symbol for deuterium, hence D2O for "heavy water".

 

[thetrooper]

Tritium has too shor a half-life, and is too ... "lively" ... for watches.

12.35 years. Tritium undergoes beta decay.