Seeing Radiation with the Naked Eye
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- Опубліковано 19 сер 2023
- In this video I'll attempt to build a Cloud Chamber for visualizing subatomic particle trails. These particles come primarily from cosmic rays, which is ambient radiation from outer space. The three main sources of radiation we'll see here are Alpha particles (relatively slow but massive helium nuclei), Beta particles (very fast electrons, but much lower mass than Alpha particles), and Gamma rays (an ultra high energy photon with frequencies in excess of 10^19 Hz, which is about 100,000x the frequency of visible light).
In the chamber, alcohol evaporates from either a reservoir, or more commonly, a fibrous object with large surface area like a sponge / towel. The vapor pressure of the alcohol inside the chamber reaches saturation (like 100% humidity, but with alcohol vapor). When a plate at the bottom of the chamber is cooled, it drives the vapor below the its condensation temperature (same thing as moist air hitting the dew point). However, when this happens, the vapor doesn't immediately condense because it needs a nucleation site, so it's in a semi-unstable state where the moment it contacts something, it'll condense. When a high energy particle flies through, it smashes into the alcohol molecules, creating a nucleation site along its flight path. This leaves behind condensation trails, similiar to a jet aircraft. If the trails are illuminated with an intense light source against a black background, they can be clearly seen with the naked eye.
Alpha particles show up as short, fat trails. Beta particles show as thin lines that often have a dashed/dotted appearance, and Gamma Rays / X Rays show up as thin squiggly lines. Also, the paths of Alpha and Beta particles can be influenced by a magnetic field because they're charged. The charge/mass ratio of the Alpha is too low to cause any noticable deflection, but with a strong enough field, a beta particle can be steered into a spiral path. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to do this in my build, even with a large N52 magnet.
The most dramatic displays occur when a piece of radioactive material is placed in the chamber. In this video, I used an old camera lens containing Thorium-232 as a radiation source.
For this chamber, the plate is cooled to about -25C with a vapor compression system. The compressor, condenser, and filter/dryer come from a used icemaker i bought off eBay for $40, emptied, and backfilled with propane from my grill. The evaporator is a coil of 1/4" copper tubing thermally anchored to an aluminum plate with silicone. With the condenser fan, the whole system uses about 1.6A at 115V, or 172W. This is dramatically more powerful, efficient, and reliable than a peltier cooler based system, but requires some basic brazing and a vacuum pump to empty the refrigerant lines. For alcohol, I use 99% Isopropyl, but Ethanol or Methanol can also be used. I tried acetone for its lower boiling point, but it never produced any visible particle trails.
The application of a vertical electric field with several thousand volts will "sharpen" the picture of the trails by "flushing" residual ions out of the fog layer. However, mine wasn't very effective, probably because I only used a loop around the chamber walls instead of a grid covering the entire upper surface.
Music Used:
Kevin MacLeod - Lobby Time
Serge Pavkin - Cosmic Glow
I also have a patreon now if you want to help support the channel. This makes it a lot easier for me to buy parts and equipment for these projects:
/ hyperspacepirate
BTW I'm still working on the J/T Cryocooler but I got a little behind after a fire and an explosion...next vid should be part II.
A fire and explosion?!?! I hope your alright.
Must be the doing of Tom from explosions and fire.
Fire and explosion you say, please include it in the video if possible
I think after a fire and explosion, this is a well deserved break in the action. God bless, I hope you didn’t get hurt too badly.
my guy blows up his cryocooler and still continues to work on it... true chad
Honestly, that alcohol rain is stunningly beautiful even without the radiation. I feel I could watch it for hours.
I seem to recall seeing one that was several feet on each side for kids to stand around at a science museum, and I've wanted my own ever since.
id like just a little box of rain like that, would be cool as
It'd be cool if you could set one up like in a vacuum flask, so that you could use just a little bit of power to keep it going and just have it as a display piece.
Actually it looks more like drizzle
And it crushes the UA-cam video compression algorithm >.
Your Autunite vial is blocking the Alpha particles (and probably a good amount of the Beta particles as well). Your Alpha emitters need to be directly exposed to the chamber atmosphere for best results. You can try a source from an old ionization smoke detector. Most of them use Americium, which primarily undergoes Alpha decay.
Take the lid off the container. You'd get a directional effect then, which would visualise the blocking effect the glass has on alpha and beta radiation.
Remind me of the radioactive boy scout who stole a bunch of fire alarms for the Americium and a radiated his neighborhood
@@How_To_Drive_a_TARDISweirdest superhero I heard about
Did not expect the radiation arc from this channel, yet I am voicing not a single complaint.
Next video: Converting Americanium from smoke detectors into Plutonium.
@LanceThumping It's Americium. Also it comes from the decay of plutonium. So in order to go from americium you'd have to bombard it with radiation to transmute some of the atoms back into plutonium. It's way easier to do it the other way around. Which means you need to have high quality plutonium laying around. Most people don't have that. So enriching uranium then breeding plutonium would be where you'd want to start lol.
It's interesting how big the world of science is, and how hard it is to know everything. I say that because as a 35 year old engineer I'm constantly in awe of your projects, yet I built a cloud chamber for my 8th grade science fair.
Making a snowman on the beach would be such an insane flex, especially in Florida. You should really get on that, because that's the kind of thing that gets you news coverage.
Best DIY channel on youtube hands down
I was thinking, open a sno-cone stand but the gimmick is, it's made with actual snow. Blizzard in a box ?
The magnet you used to try and see a curved Beta particle was ((probably)) too strong. In a field of that strength, the cyclotron radius would be extremely small, like
I've long wanted to build a sealed, "permanent" cloud chamber as an art installation. Expertly blown glass parts with a beautiful wood pedestal. I thought it would be neat to have a small Farnsworth reactor in the middle of a big vapor chamber.
Imma steal that project idea for my list of projects that I'll never manage to do
A fusor produces fast neutrons tho... I don't know if even lead glass is sufficient enough for that..
I really need to build a cloud chamber myself. I saw one at the exploratorium as a child and it was life changing.
That place is amazing, probably one of my favorite museums ever.
Nice cloud chamber, the reason why the uranium sample don't emit alpha particles is because alfa particles can be blocked by a paper sheet, so the bottle material blocked the emission of alpha particles.
Dude that little bit at the end where you describe the snow machine is just brilliant. You’re seriously clever with this stuff! Amazing to watch 😊
I’d be very interested in looking at the snow made in the cloud chamber or the snowmaker you talked about under a microscope - the shape of snowflakes you get depends on humidity and temperature so you could probably get interesting results by tuning your system
Tech Ingredients made a great video on making on of these too. The title is "you're swimming in radiation and you don't even know it".
For the autunite demonstration most of the alpha particles that it would give off are blocked by the thin glass of the vial, while the beta and gamma particles are able to escape with relative ease.
Excellent demonstration, I hope everyone can see this knowledge as proof that our weather IS MAN-IPULATED. THANK YOU
Its a good day when i see the HSP notification pop up
The 60's were the best time to be alive. If you know, you know...
Always nice to hear about new installations from your hyperspace.
You can see it in a cat scan, when they go over your eyes. It looks like sparse static.
Peltier coolers CAN cool large areas if they are used correctly. I reached -26°C on my 20x20 cm, 4 mm thick cold plate with my chamber measured in similar conditions where you measured "only" -23.4°C. Also, after a while I could even reach -28°C. Service life is also not a problem nowadays. I worked with an electron microscope for more than half a decade where the X-ray detector was cooled by a Peltier unit and there were never any issues with it. Yes, they are inefficient, but 300 W in this case is pretty OK in exchange for the spectacular traces. I will soon finish "Part 2" of my Peltier-based chamber, feel free to check it. A huge advantage of the Peltier coolers for cloud chambers is that you can actually build it at home on your desk, which is definitely not true for a compressor-based system.
Thanks for another great video!
Man a snowman on the beach would be a dream cooler project
Its not only cool sience, but one thats especially flashy to show off (though less flash projects are often cooler)
That's way more voltage than you need. 1kv should work. I think you are getting tons of corona discharge.
I appreciate your love for phase change cooling
Wow that is just so beautiful. Great work on the chamber and thanks for showing us your results!
Cool. Another way to get the vapor was to reduce the pressure in the chamber, such that a vapor is formed. At least, that is what I remember from the kit I got when I was a kid. But that was over 50 years ago. I really like your videos, for many reasons.
Seeing those patterns forming due to the electric field makes me wonder what would happen if you'd hook it up to a signal generator. Could it be possible to generate patterns?
This was great! I love all the experiments!
Beautiful shots!
Brilliant work.
takes me back to my second year in uni when i was building a cloud chamber for a physics project with a friend
we got it to do the "rain" effect consistently but only ever saw maybe two particle trails
this video brought a smile to my face
extreme strong connections about the examples of an specific individual and yours experiments
Thanks for sharing!
My dad was a science teacher and I remember him making one. His ion source was a small piece of radioactive material on the head of a pin stuck in a cork. Have you looked at vortex coolers for cooling. They probably wouldn’t be easy to control
Since they make a cold steam of air
Fantastic. You have increased my knowledge again.
I can't. Your humor. Thanks bro. Made my day
I have pure confidence in our ability to understand our electric universe within our lifetime. This is fascinating
Absolutely interesting effects by the electric fields
Great video. Making a cloud chamber is one of the many things on my never-ending to-do list.
Amazing video, as always. Extremely interesting
wow its been a while since ive watched you channel, i remember bsck when you were at around 30k, love to see that you have grown
It boggles my mind how wind can be created from a corona discharge.
Very nice video, thx!
Man that was genius!
And the memes are hilarious
Dayum; This was a fun usage of my time at 5am. Thanks!
Very nice build 👌 👏 ❤
Cloud chambers rock!! You would he surprised at what is in fact, radioactive around us daily
Dude this is so cool it actually looks unreal
I was having dinner in a fancy restaurant in Palo Alto last night and your channel came up in the discussion. After dinner I check the UA-cam notifications and there it is a new vijeo! Thank you
REALLY quality content
This video is amazing!
Hi HP,
Loving your content. Since you mentioned you spend a lot of time watching different DIY science channels I would love too see some featured on your YT-Page. I am always on the hunt for new good channels.
I knew of them, but only the water vapor based ones that operate one pulse at a time. Now I want one running full time just displaying background radiation.
This is impressive amount of work done. I geniunly inspired by your work, thank you very much for sharing
Ok, that is just cool. Nicely done! Agreeing with others: i could experiment with it and stare at it all day. Beautiful!
Love the wish list 😊
Awesome.
That was really interesting seeing the camera lens in the chamber. I've always been curious to see an old thoriated coleman lantern mantle in one of these chambers to see just how radioactive they are.
Americium from old smoke detectors is also a fun test emitter for cloud chamber experiments.
Jimmy Hoffa memorial landfill. Now that's funny! 👍
This is why I started watching your channel, I want to build one of these and I'm trying to work out how to do it.
This feels like an excellent background and central prop for a horror movie. The cloud chamber is the only source of gieger counter as they figure out a stressful radioactive situation.
Interesting video.
Хорошая работа, спасибо.
Presumably you could crisp up the definition by ensuring that the inside of the container was extremely clean and wasn't off gassing anything (like the paint or the caulking). I'm not sure if it would be worth the trouble.
Thanks
great stuff
Nifty as always
Good music choice!
Very cool
Saw this pop up in my notifications and immediately said "Cloud chamber!"
you're awesome \m/
10:01 Whaaat? That looks so dope!!
This proves the world is not as we see it... I could watch this process for days. Would love to see a piece of Vaseline glass in there, or a piece of Fiestaware, or better yet, an old wristwatch with radium dial... Awesome build man ..
Love it
I was lucky enough to see one back in my undergrad days. They're initially underwhelming, but when you think about it, they're blazingly cool. Watching things zip by or spiral away was such a great experience.
And if you're into things that sound cool, end up underwhelming, then get cool again, have you ever heard of a "neutron howitzer?" Good memories.
They're like a microscope with a magnfication of quadrillion, made out of freezer, LEDs and few pieces of acrylic. Out of all measuring devices the only other type in same category is interferometer.
@@user-yb5cn3np5q Ooh, good choice!
Can I suggest putting the magnet back in, dropping the voltage to a reasonable level and putting in a banana, some fertilizer or any other sample of Potassium? With a bit of luck (and math to see how much Potassium you need) you'll be able to see a positron.
I adore how you hate peltier coolers, they are certainly one of the least efficient conductive but thermally isolating ceramics, and a very poor way to transfer heat, which theoretically has no upper bound on efficiency. Maybe if we used superconductors and a vacuum gap we could improve on the efficiency of conductive heat transfer in the ceramics. That or use some other zero-loss mechanism that can uptake and depart phonon motion while regenerating the energy lost by the phonon transport particle we put in.. 🤔
Maybe there's a better phase change transition besides RF-11/fluorocarbons (strong bonds, doesnt want to have van der walls or Hydrogen interactions) or ionic chemical refrigerants.
Nice project
Thank you for not saying 'on accident'!
very cool
Use an electromagnet...once you are seeing particles energize it...either small enough to have less effect inside the chamber or strong enough and the ability to turn it on and off may help. Thank You For Your Time And Effort!
Black 3.0 Paint, for the background, would help the contrast immensely!
Woe now, I damn nearly subscribed. This is good stuff......can it really get better?!?!?
Can wait to see you produce a snowman on a beach! 🙌🏼
Really interesting. The video has an unusual cadence to it. I think it would be interesting to see this under a high speed camera but it does bring me to the question, what was the shutter speed for the video for the events in the chamber?
Propane as a fridgerant? "You there need some propane and propane accessories.", "Bobby! Get ready to light it up!"
"Okay dad! All ready to light 'em up!"
Cloud chambers 4-6 were nice.
Btw if you wanted to build one with an electric field plate that you can see through, maybe use a glass or plastic plate coated with indium tin oxide. Or mirrors I guess.
I haven't searched if other videos have done it, but it would be interesting if you could put a sheet of lead or other metals to see how it changes the radioactive particles from your lens.
Those particles penetrate our brain
Neat!
If you look into the "moon pool" of a neuclear reactor, you can see "radiation". The blue glow is electrons, neutrons and protons colliding with water. There are several radioactive elements making this glow.
Nice
If you want a particle accelerator, small cyclotrons are within the reach of DIY...
I was wondering why there wasnt an update on the cooler. Only the best can get nerd sniped this hard. Great video!
Love the original text in the chatgpt 😂😂
You might be able to take an exposure from when nothing was happening and subtract that frame from further photos to make the results artificially more visible for analysis purposes.
You're basically replicating the weather, Electrical and magnetic condition of flat Earth. Awesome skills
god damn, I sort by newest and the first commenter I see is a nutcase. seriously, how?
Nice experiment. I wonder how a thoriated TIG electrode would look in there. The thingy that sits in a handheld torch and is often ground in front of ones face to make a sharp tip :)