I didn't become extremely interested in radiation until my early 20's, and as a visual learner, radiation was a very mysterious thing to me, as the field is mostly comprised of looking only at math. However, the first time I saw a cloud chamber was a Eureka moment for me, and the experience spurred a decade of learning and studying all forms of radiation. I honestly think a cloud chamber should be in every middle school and high school science class, and I'd highly encourage if any science teachers/professors are watching this and do not have a cloud chamber, build this, and put it in your classroom, because you WILL inspire minds.
Man best cloud chamber ever, at least of those I've seen. I love how you go about your projects with every intent to get the best possible results with the constraints you have. Be it physical, size or budget you strife to get the best bang for the buck. Your "little" chamber beats a lot of school, science fair and even museum versions.
@@beesod6412 I bought the DVDs for my kids hadn’t watched since I was a kid, he’s awesome. I think you’re thinking of Bill Nye the Science Guy. I watched some of his stuff from the 90’s and he really was an a-hole to the kids. Mr Wizard may seem terse at times but I doubt he was doing on purpose. Bill Nye seemed to think he was being funny.
... good news. You've got several days of back catalogue to get through. This channel is just like the cool science teacher who's bored and over qualified and teaches stuff way above grade level for fun.
Like bit flips in DRAM and FLASH memory. L1 and L2 cache memory have no EDAC, oops, hope the application is not flight critical . . . . . . cold boot offten amigo. IBM Hawk data indicated about one upset per month per megabyte in early DRAMS. Just another Blue screen of death. Will start the stock market sell off for shure.
As a 74 year old I remember well a cloud chamber in nuclear physics at school. The chamber was very tiny but then we had access to nuclear materials that probably now would be illegal, at least here in Australia. They showed alpha, beta and gamma radiation although the area was too small and too dull to show ambient radioactivity. This was before we knew about the really tiny sub atomic particles like quarks, positrons and neutrinos etc so who knows what we were really seeing! I loved your vivid demonstration of the solar radiation. I wonder how much ambient radiation is still hanging around from the results of nuclear tests. We had lots in the deserts in central Australia before aerial explosions were banned and whilst the fallout is not dangerous far away from the test sites, there was so much fallout at the time of long half-life products that we must be still able to detect some even now. I would love to see:- * the difference between ambient daytime radiation and night time radiation, *A demonstration of the effects of magnetism, especially if an electromagnet was introduced that could swap polarity *see if everyday objects (like bananas) that are said to have radioactive material (like Potassium) showed up detectable activity. On second thoughts perhaps hold that last one since it might frighten everyone off bananas and kill our banana industry!
Cosmic rays are absolutely stunning. Incomprehensibly huge events in our universe, absurdly far in distance and time, die before our eyes in such ephemeral flashes. Imagine a packet of energy being generated before the dinosaurs walked the earth with a precise direction and target: the vapour that you distilled from your garden potatoes... thanks Tech Ingredients!
i was at a museum in amsterdam (NEMO) and after a hearty Amsterdam breakfast i was intensely moved and mesmerised by the cloud chamber there. thanks for doing this. they are amazing things
I had heard of and knew why they are used, but never knew how to build one. A cloud chamber was mentioned in another video I watched and suddenly, up pops your video. Thank you!
I personally loved the rocket motor series the best, but this was the bees knees! I really appreciate it, you're as engaging and informative as my physics professor, and Sharaz is one of the all time best!
I've seen one of these cloud chambers before at a physics demonstration at my university, they're super cool. While I won't be uilding a cloud chamber, I found the techniques regarding the LEDs, thermal stuff and construction of the chamber very useful! Thanks for another fantastic episode, and a very entertaining one.
Best one yet, my favorite. You mentioned using silicone RTV, I’m wondering if you’ve ever added corn starch to RTV to accelerate the cure? Thanks for all the fascinating and educational episodes. I’m a former USAF Missile Tech (IYAAYAS) and now own 1/3 of Guardian Financial Systems, a bank equipment company. When the vault won’t open in the morning, they call me. Other interests are model rockets, home brewing and distilling, target shooting, ballistics and Ammo reloading, guitar and vintage Hammond Organ. Check out the Hammond Tone generator to see how they got all those tones from a purely mechanical device. Love the channel.
DUDE. The empty tank display is incredible! I've never actually seen a demonstration of that before. Thanks as always for posting, I really enjoy the cool stuff you guys do!
Each video just gets better and better. Learning more science from this channel then I ever did in school! I'd love to see you explain how signals sent to an antenna become EM Radio transmissions and why exactly a single wire acting as an antenna can detect that over great distance.
It would be useful if someone built a permanent cloud chamber installation and streamed the video, so that cosmic rays could be displayed and analysed frame-by-frame. A strong neodymium magnet could be used to reveal the charge on the particles. It would be interesting to watch during the coming solar maximum. That would be a very useful educational tool. Link it to a local Geiger Counter Reading of background radiation
@@timhyatt9185 there is strong secondary emissions in the earths upper atmosphere that lead to a cascade radiation burst. While our sun is the source of most of the dangerous radiation, mostly protons. There are occasional cosmic gamma ray bursts.
@@nigeljohnson9820 that was what I was saying...most of the dangerous radiation from the sun gets diverted by the magnetic field, and subsequently, the Ozone layer, but when there's a CME, we experience a marked increase. some of that dives deep enough into the atmosphere it starts interacting with molecules there, producing auroras. It's part of why the auroras become visible so much further south during solar storms. A video of a cloud chamber set up during such a time would show a marked increase in activity.....
A year or two ago, I built one out of a peanut butter jar. I inverted the jar to use it. The metal lid sat on the dry ice. I cut the bottom out of the jar and used some glass over that to make a nice viewing window. Inside, I set up a high voltage electric field between the metal lid (now the bottom of the chamber) and a wire loop slightly smaller diameter than the jar, placed inside just below my glass "top". I found this helped immensely to control the clutter left over after the particle "events". I noticed you didnt use such an electric "sweep field". Also, i was able to sufficiently warm the top of the chamber by resting the palm of my hand on it for a few minutes to start the alcohol evaporating. I want to build another one with better lighting and a small electric heater to better control the temperature gradient. I have thought for some time some nice green LEDS would be much nicer than the flashlight I was using to illuminate the chamber. I also want to do a proper insulated box like you did for the base of the chamber. What wattage would I want for my heater on a small chamber like this? What wattage did you run on yours? How would one calculate the heater wattage needed for a given volume chamber? Thank you for a really cool video!
Making a Cloud chamber was awesome, i love the visualisation of radioactive particles but also was a shock to see so many from the cosmic rays.. i had no idea they penetrated buildings like that.
I worked as a quality control technician at a color photo lab while attending college back in the 70's. We developed mostly large format color film (think 120mm) shot mostly by wedding photographers. Most of the business was printing the results of those negatives on to Kodak (aka the yellow father's) photographic paper sold in rolls. Everything in the entire process was very carefully monitored from the building humidity levels, color chemistry conditions, the high-end automated printers (for the time period) were always drifting. (We had to maintain them within +/- 3CC) The drifting was due to the vacuum tube thyratron tubes weakening, or the 6 photo-multiplier tubes aging in each printer and the halogen light sources drifting. All of this and more had to be maintained to the quality levels expected by pro photographers of the day. Dust was a constant problem, because it could land on negatives, accumulate on printer lenses, cutoff filters, light chambers, Etc. So the company had these little camel hair brushes all over the lab that had little cartridges with polonium inside. They also had compressed air blow guns that had radioactive cartridges as well. The compressed air was filtered down to 5 microns. The polonium created an ionized area of air underneath the brushes that neutralized any electrical charges on the film that were holding dust particles in place. I think the blow guns were leased by 3M back in the day. They had a special division that leased anti-static devices. The film was already developed and dry when printed, so the radiation did not fog the film. These polonium cartridges had expiration dates printed on them. Part of my job in QC was to swap them out whenever they expired or stopped working. The manufacturer was very particular in that you had to send all expired cartridges back to them first, before you could lease another replacement. The leases as I recall were good for around 6-12 months. It became such an inconvenience to track all these little radiation sources that the lab looked into HV ionizing devices to accomplish the same tasks. Although more expensive, they were cheaper to use and maintain in the long haul.
Yeah, seriously... Most people don't even know what the EM spectrum is. How are they going to know that there's radiation. Around them? I guarantee if your wanted down a street and asked 1/10 would know what light is. Maybe less.
I really like the technical explanations, the why, in all of your (plural) videos. The thoroughness helps us understand what part is essential and what is not
There is one such thing to play with in the swiss technorama in Winterthur. You even allowed to play with it. Seeing this chamber in real life has had a huge impact in my understanding of the topic 🤙😎
It's VERY neat to see the trails from a source that emits radioactive daughter products with very short half-lives. (Half-lives in the less than 1 second range) You will see a trail that comes off the source, and then it will quickly split off into 2 separate looking trails as it transmutates into the next element in the decay chain.
Loved this, thanks for sharing your amazing DIY science with such clear explanations. I also appreciated you sending out the notification. Will these be available on the channel afterwards? I missed part of the beginning.
I cannot believe you're making this video right now because I just finished getting a whole bunch of parts to make my own cloud chamber just a little while ago, ( actually I started working on getting parts for my cloud chamber approximately 6 months ago).
Even after 4 years studying physics at university, I had still only seen pictures of these in text books. I had no idea of the scale of the trails. Was I looking at life size photos….or highly magnified images? I had no idea. Thanks for sharing!!! :)
Sure. You can tell these are life size and real time if you compare the trails to the size of the sources and the spacing of the dual sources when used. Also, watch for the subtile camera movement during the live shots from the side.
Used to demonstrate radioactivity to my coworkers with the potassium salt ( salt substitutes ). They were disconcerted, when told they have that same potassium in their bodies. Kewl cloud chamber !
I was a little hesitant to click, because of the title. I know that gazillions of particles pass through my body every second, e.g. neutrinos. I guess most of the viewers of this channel know that they are "swimming" in radiation. Also they know what a cloud chamber is. But I like that you made actually one yourself and described it in high detail, so everyone could build one. Maybe a little more info on the heaters of the alcohol at the top would be nice. Maybe I missed it. Conclusion: Very good video. No hype, no drama, no nonsense. I really appreciate this calm presentation, focused on facts and some suggestions on how to do things. Thank you.
ECC memory for computer RAM is made to be proofed against cosmic rays. I had a beer at Cosmic Rays, the tune on the jukebox was ''Muon up'' and the beer was fermented using left-handed sugar, so no fat, no hangover and it doesnt even show up on a breath-test. The 4D pool table isnt working yet, we cant work out how to slow the balls down, so its chaos, with each shot producing hundreds of collisions, but the atmosphere is great! Its been upgraded it to 30% oxygen, so deffo no smoking, everybody is always so buzzed! Come to Cosmic Rays!
That's the best could chamber ever! Put an engineer to make something and get great results! I wonder what a stronger source would look like, maybe a piece of radium that has a count rate of several million per second.
Fantastic addition to a long ago already impressive archive-channel of human knowledge ,beautiful build of this radiation visualization device! Amazing seeing those cosmic rays
What a stunning visualization! May I suggest you also try a radioactive source from a smoke alarm in the chamber. Anyway, great job, definitely one of your coolest experiments.
this would be super cool to watch or have as a desktop background if it had RGB LEDs changing to different colors over time like a trippy disco or nightclub.
That was really cool! Might I suggest you clip these down to 1 minute highlights and post them in UA-cam Shorts. It’s a great way to grow your audience.
Particle physics completely fascinates me and I also find radiation pretty spooky, downright terrifying when seeing how it plays a role in disasters or warfare. I'd love to do this project so I can understand a little more of how radiation behaves and maybe find myself worrying less too!
Seeing the cosmic rays should make me defecate bricks, but that is my favorite demonstration out of them all. Going above the average natural background is what gets me anxious.
You can also just put a tank under pressure (e.g. a large water cooler bottle) with a little isop alcohol at the bottle and then suddenly release the pressure. It'll create a similar effect that you can see radioactive particles with. Works pretty well in a pinch and is significantly cheaper/quicker. I modelled it for my daughter a few years back as a demonstration.
INCREDIBLE! I love all of your works. Future video idea: ...............Acoustic Levitation........... Controlled, adjustable standing waves. Nanobot manipulation.
very cool I could watch the cosmic ray one all day. I need like a 1 hour loop of the Cosmic Ray one, as it's cool seeing it hit the alcohol particles then fall down.
I'm very familiar with the high quality of the content this channel produces but that initial footage of the experiment at work absolutely blew me away
Great video! A couple suggestions: 1) Get your hand videographer some kind of steady-cam gymbal? 2) In this case the radioactive sources reflecting the LED lighting was distracting. Could the sources be darkened without mitigating their radiation significantly? If so, I'd do that. I watch every video you make with great interest- this one was especially detailed and interesting.
I was drawn to your channel a few years ago with the flat panel speakers & really enjoy your content. Love the father son team that's been developing, love the way you explain theory and concepts a lot of us don't have a background in. My recommendation is to divide future content into 2 uploads, 1 for the build and possibly a small demo, and another for the full demo and explanation of more conceptual or philosophical theory. That way you're appealing to those who have more of an interest in science & then get them hooked on the engineering while they're here. Just a thought, I'll still be watching anyways
We've tried that because it seemed to be a good idea. However, we have been suprised by the response. If the one video is an overview the comments are full of complaints about missing details and depth and the much more thorough video gets far fewer views as if it was just a repetition and not worth watching "again".
Great project. I remember from my childhood being given a science project book with a glass jar cloud chamber project - I think it also used a saturated layer of alcohol with dry ice but also I think there was a plunger or something like that to pulldown the internal pressure. Wouldn't it be a great add on to show up the created electrons/ions by putting a switching electric field across the tank to watch them zig zag! You could then tell between them and say neutrons/neutrinos.
Great work ... once again. This was a great little project. If you looking for a step up to this one...maybe add a re-purposed mini fridge /freezer as cooling source .... or an oil super cooler unit to chill oil to chill a copper or aluminum cryo plate.. I truly enjoy your channel.
Thank you. I’ve wanted to make one of these for years. Almost makes me want to break the law in NZ and look for some uranium ore on our west coast just to get a sample for a chamber.
What a neat and complete covering of the Wilson chamber’ It was nice when you placed ales a Nd magnet in it to make the polarity related curves. The green lasers are not out of your mind , they were in fact very usable to make the light. In the right form and intensity. But these are just suggestions. I really have enjoyed this project! So beautiful and clear tracks. Always a pleasure to see what you have done the time ! Greetings from the Netherlands. Andy
I'm glad to see radiation awareness going up around the internet, teaching people what it ACTUALLY is and what kind is dangerous, teaching people how to be safe. I hope soon we can reach a point where people aren't scared of 5G like a nuclear warhead
That fear is primarily not from ignorance, but from mistrust. There are a lot of areas where the user doesn't understand the principles, but is not afraid of them. The challenge would be to explain the principles so well that the user understands that the technology could not be a threat even though they still don't trust the developers of that technology.
I love cloud chambers. Only ever seen one in person, wanting to build one ever since but I do not have the space to store it when it's not in use. Great video!
My first thought was to try a smoke detector, or rather the internals of one, as they are known to have a small amount of radioactive material in them. Would be interesting to see how it compares to the other materials you showed. Very cool video!
As an airline pilot, I'm actually operating in an environment with higher radiation levels than a nuclear power plant worker. When flying into higher latitudes where the atmospheric boundary layers are lower and the Earth's magnetic flux lines are converging towards the pole, I also check space weather with solar activity. This can give me hopes of good auroras, possible communication or navigation signal issues, or if we should fly lower to protect any ladies riding along that might have "buns in their ovens". I've sketched a carry on sized cloud chamber using peltier modules and battery bricks to lay on the floor of the flight deck to video radiation activity and particle tracks at cruise altitudes. It will be fully automated needing no interaction while I perform my normal duties with a barosensor to detect cabin altitude during our climb. The smell of grain alcohol behind the cockpit door is an issue, lol! I'm a former engineer with a degree in Physical Science where I'm given center stage to observe the heavens above, the atmosphere around, and the Earth below. It's a moving experience for our passengers in geography but in soul for myself...
You might consider making a solid state scintillation detector instead. You need a pretty stable environment to allow the supersaturated vapor layer to survive. Maneuvering and vibrations could be a problem.
I didn't become extremely interested in radiation until my early 20's, and as a visual learner, radiation was a very mysterious thing to me, as the field is mostly comprised of looking only at math. However, the first time I saw a cloud chamber was a Eureka moment for me, and the experience spurred a decade of learning and studying all forms of radiation. I honestly think a cloud chamber should be in every middle school and high school science class, and I'd highly encourage if any science teachers/professors are watching this and do not have a cloud chamber, build this, and put it in your classroom, because you WILL inspire minds.
Man best cloud chamber ever, at least of those I've seen.
I love how you go about your projects with every intent to get the best possible results with the constraints you have.
Be it physical, size or budget you strife to get the best bang for the buck.
Your "little" chamber beats a lot of school, science fair and even museum versions.
You're like Mr. Wizard for big kids. Thanks for all you do man.
@@jeremiahbullfrog9288 Yeah, MR. Wizard was an absolute jerk, always bashing on the kids, it was like a train wreck I couldn't stop watching
@@beesod6412 I bought the DVDs for my kids hadn’t watched since I was a kid, he’s awesome. I think you’re thinking of Bill Nye the Science Guy. I watched some of his stuff from the 90’s and he really was an a-hole to the kids. Mr Wizard may seem terse at times but I doubt he was doing on purpose. Bill Nye seemed to think he was being funny.
This was a WONDERFUL video. I loved it! I’m subbing!
Thanks!
... good news. You've got several days of back catalogue to get through.
This channel is just like the cool science teacher who's bored and over qualified and teaches stuff way above grade level for fun.
@@Hebdomad7 A few days would be an understatement. So much of Tech Ingredients content are deliciously thicc, long-format videos.
Like bit flips in DRAM and FLASH memory. L1 and L2 cache memory have no EDAC, oops,
hope the application is not flight critical . . . . . . cold boot offten amigo.
IBM Hawk data indicated about one upset per month per megabyte in early DRAMS.
Just another Blue screen of death.
Will start the stock market sell off for shure.
Josh great to see you here, some excellent videos here and TI is also a ham; I’ve seen his inverted V in at least one video.
73 K9MKE
I'm so thankful our world has people this smart to share knowledge that the majority of us would never know.thank you
As a 74 year old I remember well a cloud chamber in nuclear physics at school. The chamber was very tiny but then we had access to nuclear materials that probably now would be illegal, at least here in Australia. They showed alpha, beta and gamma radiation although the area was too small and too dull to show ambient radioactivity. This was before we knew about the really tiny sub atomic particles like quarks, positrons and neutrinos etc so who knows what we were really seeing! I loved your vivid demonstration of the solar radiation.
I wonder how much ambient radiation is still hanging around from the results of nuclear tests. We had lots in the deserts in central Australia before aerial explosions were banned and whilst the fallout is not dangerous far away from the test sites, there was so much fallout at the time of long half-life products that we must be still able to detect some even now.
I would love to see:- * the difference between ambient daytime radiation and night time radiation,
*A demonstration of the effects of magnetism, especially if an electromagnet was introduced that could
swap polarity
*see if everyday objects (like bananas) that are said to have radioactive material (like Potassium) showed up detectable activity.
On second thoughts perhaps hold that last one since it might frighten everyone off bananas and kill our banana industry!
Cosmic rays are absolutely stunning. Incomprehensibly huge events in our universe, absurdly far in distance and time, die before our eyes in such ephemeral flashes.
Imagine a packet of energy being generated before the dinosaurs walked the earth with a precise direction and target: the vapour that you distilled from your garden potatoes...
thanks Tech Ingredients!
Best comment!
i was at a museum in amsterdam (NEMO) and after a hearty Amsterdam breakfast i was intensely moved and mesmerised by the cloud chamber there. thanks for doing this. they are amazing things
I had heard of and knew why they are used, but never knew how to build one. A cloud chamber was mentioned in another video I watched and suddenly, up pops your video. Thank you!
I personally loved the rocket motor series the best, but this was the bees knees! I really appreciate it, you're as engaging and informative as my physics professor, and Sharaz is one of the all time best!
How about a particle stream propelled rocket motor?????
I've seen one of these cloud chambers before at a physics demonstration at my university, they're super cool. While I won't be uilding a cloud chamber, I found the techniques regarding the LEDs, thermal stuff and construction of the chamber very useful! Thanks for another fantastic episode, and a very entertaining one.
"one of those instances where size does matter" and "bigger is better" I feel personally attacked
Think of it as a wake-up call.😁
Best one yet, my favorite. You mentioned using silicone RTV, I’m wondering if you’ve ever added corn starch to RTV to accelerate the cure? Thanks for all the fascinating and educational episodes. I’m a former USAF Missile Tech (IYAAYAS) and now own 1/3 of Guardian Financial Systems, a bank equipment company. When the vault won’t open in the morning, they call me. Other interests are model rockets, home brewing and distilling, target shooting, ballistics and Ammo reloading, guitar and vintage Hammond Organ. Check out the Hammond Tone generator to see how they got all those tones from a purely mechanical device. Love the channel.
Sounds like you got some interesting hobbies that would be cool to share. Subbed (if you ever make any videos I’ll watch!)
@@Lawbase Yeah, I like watching smart people too. Especially smart people that are good at explaining things.
DUDE. The empty tank display is incredible! I've never actually seen a demonstration of that before. Thanks as always for posting, I really enjoy the cool stuff you guys do!
Videos on this channel are ACTUALLY educational. Much deeper explanations than other channels. 🔥🔥🔥
All of your content is amazing but this one is ...out of this world!
Each video just gets better and better. Learning more science from this channel then I ever did in school! I'd love to see you explain how signals sent to an antenna become EM Radio transmissions and why exactly a single wire acting as an antenna can detect that over great distance.
It would be useful if someone built a permanent cloud chamber installation and streamed the video, so that cosmic rays could be displayed and analysed frame-by-frame. A strong neodymium magnet could be used to reveal the charge on the particles. It would be interesting to watch during the coming solar maximum. That would be a very useful educational tool.
Link it to a local Geiger Counter Reading of background radiation
you might be able to detect times when we're passing thru solar storms....though most of that isn't powerful enough to reach the ground...
@@timhyatt9185 there is strong secondary emissions in the earths upper atmosphere that lead to a cascade radiation burst. While our sun is the source of most of the dangerous radiation, mostly protons. There are occasional cosmic gamma ray bursts.
@@nigeljohnson9820 that was what I was saying...most of the dangerous radiation from the sun gets diverted by the magnetic field, and subsequently, the Ozone layer, but when there's a CME, we experience a marked increase. some of that dives deep enough into the atmosphere it starts interacting with molecules there, producing auroras. It's part of why the auroras become visible so much further south during solar storms. A video of a cloud chamber set up during such a time would show a marked increase in activity.....
Rich content, one of the best YT channels of its kind. Underrated.
I have one word that I repeat over & over as I watch your experiments & presentations ! W O W ! Thank you for your patience !
A year or two ago, I built one out of a peanut butter jar. I inverted the jar to use it. The metal lid sat on the dry ice. I cut the bottom out of the jar and used some glass over that to make a nice viewing window. Inside, I set up a high voltage electric field between the metal lid (now the bottom of the chamber) and a wire loop slightly smaller diameter than the jar, placed inside just below my glass "top". I found this helped immensely to control the clutter left over after the particle "events". I noticed you didnt use such an electric "sweep field". Also, i was able to sufficiently warm the top of the chamber by resting the palm of my hand on it for a few minutes to start the alcohol evaporating. I want to build another one with better lighting and a small electric heater to better control the temperature gradient. I have thought for some time some nice green LEDS would be much nicer than the flashlight I was using to illuminate the chamber. I also want to do a proper insulated box like you did for the base of the chamber. What wattage would I want for my heater on a small chamber like this? What wattage did you run on yours? How would one calculate the heater wattage needed for a given volume chamber? Thank you for a really cool video!
The last demonstration was really stunning to me, very very nice project, the coolest thing on your channel maybe. Thanks a lot!
Making a Cloud chamber was awesome, i love the visualisation of radioactive particles but also was a shock to see so many from the cosmic rays.. i had no idea they penetrated buildings like that.
Neither did we!
I'd just like to have a long form video of each of the materials sitting in the tanks just to watch. It's mesmerising.
Absolutely fascinating. This post just blew my mind. I just wasn't expecting that.
This will be a very thought-provoking episode for stoners on 4/20
I'm burning one right now.
I left the community observance and immediately found this. Tis true, tis true.
I’m on 1000mg of gummies right now lol
Ayoooooooooooo!
Why? Because some are TI's since they're not down with the malicious "cool" suicidal slow kill cult?
I worked as a quality control technician at a color photo lab while attending college back in the 70's. We developed mostly large format color film (think 120mm) shot mostly by wedding photographers. Most of the business was printing the results of those negatives on to Kodak (aka the yellow father's) photographic paper sold in rolls. Everything in the entire process was very carefully monitored from the building humidity levels, color chemistry conditions, the high-end automated printers (for the time period) were always drifting. (We had to maintain them within +/- 3CC) The drifting was due to the vacuum tube thyratron tubes weakening, or the 6 photo-multiplier tubes aging in each printer and the halogen light sources drifting. All of this and more had to be maintained to the quality levels expected by pro photographers of the day. Dust was a constant problem, because it could land on negatives, accumulate on printer lenses, cutoff filters, light chambers, Etc.
So the company had these little camel hair brushes all over the lab that had little cartridges with polonium inside. They also had compressed air blow guns that had radioactive cartridges as well. The compressed air was filtered down to 5 microns. The polonium created an ionized area of air underneath the brushes that neutralized any electrical charges on the film that were holding dust particles in place. I think the blow guns were leased by 3M back in the day. They had a special division that leased anti-static devices.
The film was already developed and dry when printed, so the radiation did not fog the film. These polonium cartridges had expiration dates printed on them. Part of my job in QC was to swap them out whenever they expired or stopped working. The manufacturer was very particular in that you had to send all expired cartridges back to them first, before you could lease another replacement. The leases as I recall were good for around 6-12 months. It became such an inconvenience to track all these little radiation sources that the lab looked into HV ionizing devices to accomplish the same tasks. Although more expensive, they were cheaper to use and maintain in the long haul.
I love how mesmerizing the background radiation is. It's like looking into a fire while camping.
One of the coolest things I've ever seen. Must be incredible to see in-person.
"You're Swimming in Radiation... And you don't even know it!"
lol, literally anyone with eyes can see we are swimming in radiation.
*Ionizing radiation*
@@Phoenix88. ...and anyone who took physics knows _that._
Yeah, seriously... Most people don't even know what the EM spectrum is. How are they going to know that there's radiation. Around them? I guarantee if your wanted down a street and asked 1/10 would know what light is. Maybe less.
@@Akya2120 that's true, and a deep deep problem. 😔
Heck, we're swimming in man made ionizing radiation since Fukushima!
I really like the technical explanations, the why, in all of your (plural) videos. The thoroughness helps us understand what part is essential and what is not
Thanks, I agree.
This looks so beautiful. I wish you would have added a few minutes at the end with relaxing music :D
Syntox Put on headfones, play music in your headphones, and watch the video with the sound turned down! ( just not in your headfones). lol
Wouldn't it make an excellent screen saver.
@@Deipnosophist_the_Gastronomer never thought of that, but what a NEAT idea!!!!
There is one such thing to play with in the swiss technorama in Winterthur. You even allowed to play with it. Seeing this chamber in real life has had a huge impact in my understanding of the topic 🤙😎
Very detailed and clear, one of the best science and tech channel on youtube.
I think you missed an opportunity there, to generate a magnetic field creating alpha and beta trails curving in opposite directions
And positron!
r/iamverysmart
It's VERY neat to see the trails from a source that emits radioactive daughter products with very short half-lives. (Half-lives in the less than 1 second range) You will see a trail that comes off the source, and then it will quickly split off into 2 separate looking trails as it transmutates into the next element in the decay chain.
Loved this, thanks for sharing your amazing DIY science with such clear explanations. I also appreciated you sending out the notification. Will these be available on the channel afterwards? I missed part of the beginning.
just click on his icon and you get a list of ALL the videos he and his son have made. When the new page comes up click VIDEOS
love to see a video of just the cloud chamber running for a couple of hours with some nice backing music.
By far the best material covered on this channel ... ever
that "one more thing" experiment at the end was really unexpected. Thanks!
Perfect!
Maybe demonstrate reflecting the particles back to the source.
Absolutely amazing demonstration. BRAVO!
6:49 Same applies in Carpentry - you can never have too many clamps. You will never hear a woodworker say "I wish I didn't have so many clamps!"
Thank you for such a detailed description of the construction of a smoke chamber detector. This brings me one step closer to observing my hypothesis.
Please don't do premieres or shorts.
TikTok INGREDIENTS, yo!!!!!!!!!!!
It was cool seeing Particles react. Makes me wonder what, and how to build my next house.
I cannot believe you're making this video right now because I just finished getting a whole bunch of parts to make my own cloud chamber just a little while ago, ( actually I started working on getting parts for my cloud chamber approximately 6 months ago).
Even after 4 years studying physics at university, I had still only seen pictures of these in text books. I had no idea of the scale of the trails. Was I looking at life size photos….or highly magnified images? I had no idea. Thanks for sharing!!! :)
Sure.
You can tell these are life size and real time if you compare the trails to the size of the sources and the spacing of the dual sources when used. Also, watch for the subtile camera movement during the live shots from the side.
This is by far the best video you've ever made
Used to demonstrate radioactivity to my coworkers with the potassium salt ( salt substitutes ). They were disconcerted, when told they have that same potassium in their bodies. Kewl cloud chamber !
All three of you are the very best. Love you guys!
I was a little hesitant to click, because of the title. I know that gazillions of particles pass through my body every second, e.g. neutrinos. I guess most of the viewers of this channel know that they are "swimming" in radiation. Also they know what a cloud chamber is. But I like that you made actually one yourself and described it in high detail, so everyone could build one. Maybe a little more info on the heaters of the alcohol at the top would be nice. Maybe I missed it. Conclusion: Very good video. No hype, no drama, no nonsense. I really appreciate this calm presentation, focused on facts and some suggestions on how to do things. Thank you.
Great contents. In Italy Pierluigi Ighina discovered and speak about this in 1940. Many international scientists known him.
Very cool. Visually striking, as if smoke was lightning.
hahaha! "back off the growth hormone..." so casually in the lecture. pretty great guys!
This might be the coolest project you've done, so far.
This is awsome to see the unseen, many thanks for sharing and the detailed valuable information.
Truly, you are a gem. Thank you ☺️ for sharing your knowledge, skill, and superb demeanor.
ECC memory for computer RAM is made to be proofed against cosmic rays. I had a beer at Cosmic Rays, the tune on the jukebox was ''Muon up'' and the beer was fermented using left-handed sugar, so no fat, no hangover and it doesnt even show up on a breath-test. The 4D pool table isnt working yet, we cant work out how to slow the balls down, so its chaos, with each shot producing hundreds of collisions, but the atmosphere is great! Its been upgraded it to 30% oxygen, so deffo no smoking, everybody is always so buzzed! Come to Cosmic Rays!
That's the best could chamber ever! Put an engineer to make something and get great results! I wonder what a stronger source would look like, maybe a piece of radium that has a count rate of several million per second.
This is one of the coolest videos you have made!
Extraordinary! Thank you for sharing the knowledge.
Fantastic addition to a long ago already impressive archive-channel of human knowledge ,beautiful build of this radiation visualization device! Amazing seeing those cosmic rays
What a stunning visualization! May I suggest you also try a radioactive source from a smoke alarm in the chamber. Anyway, great job, definitely one of your coolest experiments.
this would be super cool to watch or have as a desktop background if it had RGB LEDs changing to different colors over time like a trippy disco or nightclub.
That was really cool!
Might I suggest you clip these down to 1 minute highlights and post them in UA-cam Shorts. It’s a great way to grow your audience.
Not a bad idea.
Great video as always, and what an awesome choice of green light. Much more visually interesting that way.
Particle physics completely fascinates me and I also find radiation pretty spooky, downright terrifying when seeing how it plays a role in disasters or warfare.
I'd love to do this project so I can understand a little more of how radiation behaves and maybe find myself worrying less too!
Seeing the cosmic rays should make me defecate bricks, but that is my favorite demonstration out of them all. Going above the average natural background is what gets me anxious.
In any case, thank you so much for continuing to facilitate these phenomenal demonstrations!
Beautiful shots and great guide! Thanks a lot Tech Ingredients Team :)
Excellent. The best cloud chamber I've seen, was a large one at the Exploratorium in San Fran. years ago.
You can also just put a tank under pressure (e.g. a large water cooler bottle) with a little isop alcohol at the bottle and then suddenly release the pressure. It'll create a similar effect that you can see radioactive particles with. Works pretty well in a pinch and is significantly cheaper/quicker. I modelled it for my daughter a few years back as a demonstration.
Holy!! That is the best demonstration I have ever seen!
It would be cool if UNLV's Atomic Testing Museum had one.
Wooooow!! So cool! Would be awesome if you could release like a 5-10 minute video of just the cosmic ray footage, no commentary. So awesome!
I could watch a 15 min long video of the cosmic ray portion.
You’re the best buskers I’ve ever seen.
Video & your commenters are amazing. I’ve never seen anything like this before! Thank you.
This may be been the best thing I’ve ever seen! I love you Howard! Haha
INCREDIBLE! I love all of your works.
Future video idea: ...............Acoustic Levitation...........
Controlled, adjustable standing waves. Nanobot manipulation.
very cool I could watch the cosmic ray one all day. I need like a 1 hour loop of the Cosmic Ray one, as it's cool seeing it hit the alcohol particles then fall down.
Glad you picked green, anything else would have felt wrong.
Wow, that was a great explanation. It made a lot of concepts finally click.
I'm very familiar with the high quality of the content this channel produces but that initial footage of the experiment at work absolutely blew me away
So cool. Could look at that all day!
Great video! A couple suggestions:
1) Get your hand videographer some kind of steady-cam gymbal?
2) In this case the radioactive sources reflecting the LED lighting was distracting. Could the sources be darkened without mitigating their radiation significantly? If so, I'd do that.
I watch every video you make with great interest- this one was especially detailed and interesting.
I recall getting to use liquid nitrogen in a physics class and being a bit awed. “It’s about as expensive as milk,” said the instructor. That helped.
I was drawn to your channel a few years ago with the flat panel speakers & really enjoy your content. Love the father son team that's been developing, love the way you explain theory and concepts a lot of us don't have a background in. My recommendation is to divide future content into 2 uploads, 1 for the build and possibly a small demo, and another for the full demo and explanation of more conceptual or philosophical theory. That way you're appealing to those who have more of an interest in science & then get them hooked on the engineering while they're here. Just a thought, I'll still be watching anyways
We've tried that because it seemed to be a good idea. However, we have been suprised by the response. If the one video is an overview the comments are full of complaints about missing details and depth and the much more thorough video gets far fewer views as if it was just a repetition and not worth watching "again".
@@TechIngredients Makes sense, and im sure my kids will get there in the end at least.
Great project. I remember from my childhood being given a science project book with a glass jar cloud chamber project - I think it also used a saturated layer of alcohol with dry ice but also I think there was a plunger or something like that to pulldown the internal pressure. Wouldn't it be a great add on to show up the created electrons/ions by putting a switching electric field across the tank to watch them zig zag! You could then tell between them and say neutrons/neutrinos.
Great work ... once again. This was a great little project. If you looking for a step up to this one...maybe add a re-purposed mini fridge /freezer as cooling source .... or an oil super cooler unit to chill oil to chill a copper or aluminum cryo plate..
I truly enjoy your channel.
Excellent video! Thanks for producing it!
Thank you. I’ve wanted to make one of these for years. Almost makes me want to break the law in NZ and look for some uranium ore on our west coast just to get a sample for a chamber.
Outstanding! THANK YOU.... "Don't worry too much" is sage advise, us humans spend far to much time in "mode worry"
I wanted to do this since a long time, I might actually give it a try with your design
the "umbrella vs. leg" delivery method was used with ricin.
Y'all never fail to impress.
What a neat and complete covering of the Wilson chamber’
It was nice when you placed ales a Nd magnet in it to make the polarity related curves.
The green lasers are not out of your mind , they were in fact very usable to make the light. In the right form and intensity. But these are just suggestions. I really have enjoyed this project! So beautiful and clear tracks. Always a pleasure to see what you have done the time !
Greetings from the Netherlands.
Andy
This is the most interesting video of yours that I've seen. Great Job!!!
I'm glad to see radiation awareness going up around the internet, teaching people what it ACTUALLY is and what kind is dangerous, teaching people how to be safe. I hope soon we can reach a point where people aren't scared of 5G like a nuclear warhead
That fear is primarily not from ignorance, but from mistrust. There are a lot of areas where the user doesn't understand the principles, but is not afraid of them.
The challenge would be to explain the principles so well that the user understands that the technology could not be a threat even though they still don't trust the developers of that technology.
@@TechIngredients I agree with you, I wonder how it would come about one day though.
I love cloud chambers. Only ever seen one in person, wanting to build one ever since but I do not have the space to store it when it's not in use. Great video!
My first thought was to try a smoke detector, or rather the internals of one, as they are known to have a small amount of radioactive material in them. Would be interesting to see how it compares to the other materials you showed. Very cool video!
Thank you amazing especially the last one! Wow so cool we can see those!!! Don’t suppose you can see neutrinos…thank you so much!!!😊
You're welcome!
Not likely as they can pass right through the planet without interacting.
As an airline pilot, I'm actually operating in an environment with higher radiation levels than a nuclear power plant worker. When flying into higher latitudes where the atmospheric boundary layers are lower and the Earth's magnetic flux lines are converging towards the pole, I also check space weather with solar activity. This can give me hopes of good auroras, possible communication or navigation signal issues, or if we should fly lower to protect any ladies riding along that might have "buns in their ovens".
I've sketched a carry on sized cloud chamber using peltier modules and battery bricks to lay on the floor of the flight deck to video radiation activity and particle tracks at cruise altitudes. It will be fully automated needing no interaction while I perform my normal duties with a barosensor to detect cabin altitude during our climb. The smell of grain alcohol behind the cockpit door is an issue, lol! I'm a former engineer with a degree in Physical Science where I'm given center stage to observe the heavens above, the atmosphere around, and the Earth below. It's a moving experience for our passengers in geography but in soul for myself...
You might consider making a solid state scintillation detector instead. You need a pretty stable environment to allow the supersaturated vapor layer to survive. Maneuvering and vibrations could be a problem.