WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Atomic Scar 0:00:06.280 --> 0:00:09.000 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:12.120 is Robert Lamb. We've had a technical issue come up 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:15.000 that disrupted our plans for this week, so Oil and 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:20.160 Troubled Water Part two won't air until next Tuesday. Instead, 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:24.440 today's episode is one from the vaults, but an ideal 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:29.160 re listen given the recent release of Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer film, 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:33.760 The Atomic Scar opens with discussion of Oppenheimer and his 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:36.479 we knew the world would not be the same statement 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:40.360 to NBC in nineteen sixty five. We'll be back with 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:43.839 new content on Wednesday. As always, Thanks for your patience 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:45.640 and your listenership. 0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:57.080 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:01.520 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Your Mind. My name is Robert. 0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:04.720 Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're going to 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:08.119 be talking about nuclear weapons testing. Now, this is something 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:11.320 that has come up on the show a good bit before. Obviously, 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:14.679 we've had to talk many times about the very real, 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:19.720 you know, danger, potential civilization level threat, and the real 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:23.880 human costs of nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons testing. But 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:26.760 today I wanted to focus on a couple of interesting 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:32.760 and lesser known environmental effects of nuclear weapons testing, specifically 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:37.080 something that I came across as it pertains to industrial metals, 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:39.280 and then we're going to get into some other scientific 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:42.560 territory as we go on, but quite apart from any 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:45.679 straightforward chemical effects on the atmosphere, I think it is 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:50.480 pretty fair to say that the human departure into the 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:54.559 nuclear weapons testing era in nineteen forty five was really 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:58.800 sort of a shift to moment for humankind as a species. 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:04.880 Yeah, And I feel like there are very few things 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:07.360 that have been said. There are very few audio samples, 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:11.120 certainly that sum it up quite as well or are 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:14.680 as haunting as those given by Jay Robert Oppenheimer in 0:02:15.080 --> 0:02:18.560 nineteen sixty five on the television documentary The Decision to 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:23.120 Drop the Bomb, broadcast as an NBC white Paper. I imagine 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:25.720 most of you heard this before. I've heard it's sampled 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:30.840 and used in music, it shows up in comic books, literature. 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:35.679 In it, the American theoretical physicist and father of the 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:39.600 atomic bomb, as he sometimes referred shares the following regarding 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:42.440 the first successful detonation of an atomic bomb at the 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:46.520 Trinity Test in New Mexico on July sixteenth, nineteen forty five, 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:50.760 he said, quote, we knew the world would not be 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:53.840 the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:57.200 most people were silent. I remembered the line from the 0:02:57.240 --> 0:03:01.480 Hindu scripture the Bagavad gitaw is trying to persuade the 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:04.040 prince that he should do his duty, and to impress him, 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:07.680 takes on his multi armed form and says, now, I 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:11.160 am become death, the destroyer of worlds. I suppose we 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:13.440 all thought that one way or another. 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:17.079 It's a difficult thing to imagine working on that kind 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:19.200 of research in a way, feeling that it is your 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:22.320 duty or your necessity to aid the Allied cause in 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:26.240 World War Two, but at the same time knowing that 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:29.560 you were working on something that would unleash an age 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:31.280 of terror in human history. 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:35.680 Yeah. I mean absolutely, a weapon that would as of 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:41.480 this recording, has only been used twice in war, which 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:44.640 on one hand you can say, thankfully has only been 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:46.520 used twice in war, but at the same hand you 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:51.080 can say, tragically has been used twice in war. Yeah. 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:54.880 We'll get into the just the destructive capabilities a bit 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:57.960 of the bomb as we proceed here, and of course 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:00.880 we've covered it on the show before. To varying degrees. 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:05.040 But I want to come back to the quote that 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:09.720 that Oppenheimer is is deploying here, So if you're not 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:12.880 familiar with it, Basically, these are these are who the 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:15.680 figures are in this. You've got Vishnu, one of the 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:19.880 principal deities of Hinduism. Uh. The Blahabad Gita or the 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:22.560 Gita as it's sometimes just shortened to, is part of 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:26.440 the Hindu epic, the Mahabarata. Technically it's book six in that, 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:31.000 and the prince in question is the hero Arjina, part 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:35.400 of the Pandava family that wages war against the Kravas. 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:40.520 That's the big struggle, that's that's key to the Mahabarata. Anyway, 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:43.919 at the beginning of the Gita, which Oppenheimer is is 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:47.960 quoting here, Arjina rides his chariot onto the field of 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:52.080 forthcoming battle between these two families. But he suddenly overcome 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:55.279 by doubt and depression, as he notes there there on 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:57.000 the other side, within the ranks of the enemy, he 0:04:57.320 --> 0:05:03.680 recognizes friends, relatives, teachers, and therefore has this just immense 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:08.040 weight descend upon him. This is a quote from it. 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:10.960 This is as translated by Edwin Arnold in eighteen eighty five. 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:14.839 And as as is always the case with translated works 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:18.719 of literature and poetry, you know the English is going 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:21.719 to be approximate, and certainly with Hinduism there are many 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:25.840 cases where particular ideas and phrases don't really have a 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:30.960 parallel word in English. Anyway, it goes as follows quote. Thus, 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:34.200 if we slay kinsfolk and friends for love of earthly power, 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:37.760 a vat, what an evil fault it were better? I 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:41.240 deem it? If my kinsmen strike to face them, weaponless 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:44.320 and bear my breast to shaft and spear, then answer 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:47.400 blow with blow. So speaking in the face of those 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:51.360 two hosts, Arginus sank upon his chariot seat and let 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:55.080 fall bow and arrows. Sick at heart, so the prospect 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:57.400 of the forthcoming bloodshed is just too much for him. 0:05:57.720 --> 0:05:59.800 But what does he do? He turns to his chariot 0:05:59.800 --> 0:06:06.640 tea for council, and luckily his charioteer is the blueskinned Krishna, 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:09.960 the avatar of the mighty Vishnu, and he gives him 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:12.440 his council. In fact, he gives him his council for 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:17.120 eighteen chapters. That's what the Gita is is basically him 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:21.520 providing all of this philosophical and spiritual advice on what 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:24.640 it is to have to make these sorts of decisions 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:27.080 and engage in war and duty and so forth. 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:29.200 So it's kind of like something like the Book of 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:31.240 Job in the form we have it now, which you 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:35.080 have a sort of small framing narrative that mainly contains 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:39.480 a didactic discourse on theological matters. 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:42.440 Right now, if you want to like a really good 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:47.720 breakdown of this episode in the Mahabarata of the Gita, 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:51.480 and especially as it relates to Oppenheimer in his life, 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:54.760 there's a wonderful paper that you can find out there 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:57.840 in full on the Internet from James A. Heiji, a 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:02.039 professor of history, University of Massachud's Dartmouth. This was a 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:05.279 nice write up he did for the American Philosophical Society 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:08.040 in two thousand and He goes into greater depth, but 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:12.680 he also summarizes Krishna's counsel as follows. He says, look, 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:16.080 you're a soldier, Argina. You have to fight. Fighting is 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:21.520 your duty, so you need to do it. He also says, look, Krishna, 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:25.880 you know this god who I also am is going 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:27.840 to be the one to determine who lives and who dies. 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:32.480 It's not your place to mourn or rejoice over human 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:36.360 loss in this case, you should try to remain unattached 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:39.960 from the outcome. And then also faith in Krishna is 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:42.720 going to be what saves your soul, Argina, And this 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:45.760 is the most important part of the whole scenario. But 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:49.840 as Argina begins to metaphorically see the light or I 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:52.960 suppose behold the true nature of the reality he's faced with, 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:57.200 he asks if he can see Krishna's god like form, 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:00.640 and this site ultimately seals Arjina's case commitment to do 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:03.760 his duty. And this occurs in chapter eleven, verse thirty two, 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:09.920 where where the now cosmically embodied Vishnu speaks to Arjina. 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:15.840 And what he exactly says to English speaking years is 0:08:15.880 --> 0:08:18.040 going to depend on the translation, but for instance, the 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:21.600 writer translation has him say death, am I a my 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:25.720 present task destruction. There's a translation by Arnold that says, 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:29.160 thou seest me as Time, who kills Time, who brings 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:32.240 all to doom? The slayer Time, ancient of days, come 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:35.600 hither to consume. And there's another one I came across 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:37.959 that I thought was pretty good. I am mighty time, 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:41.280 the source of destruction that comes forth to annihilate the worlds. 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:46.680 And I've always loved this one by jab Van Bettinen quote, 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:50.960 I am time grown old to destroy the world embarked 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:54.360 on the course of world annihilation. I am time grown 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:57.040 Old'll always find that kind of there's something kind of 0:08:57.040 --> 0:09:00.200 perplexing about that phrasing that seems to be fitting this 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:03.480 all powerful being that is, you know, that has taken 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:04.640 on his true form to you. 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:07.959 Yeah, there's something that comes in the fullness of time. 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:09.000 Yeah. 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:13.760 Yeah, it's interesting the way the personification as time further 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:18.160 serves that purpose of the kind of depersonalization of one's 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:20.839 role in history. You know, there is a kind of 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:25.280 like a fate or world path that is executed through 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:29.160 the passing of time, and what you are is someone 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:31.800 who plays a role within it, not the shape or 0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:32.120 of it. 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:37.359 Yeah. Absolutely, Again, it is even in translation as it's 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:42.600 this really perplexing and beautiful passage. Now, I should stress 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:46.520 that Oppenheimer was not religiously Hindu, but he was interested 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:49.720 in Hindu scripture, and clearly he found an association here 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:52.560 between his role and the creation of the bomb, and 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:56.920 the idea of duty performed regardless of potential outcome. Now, 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:01.120 he certainly is bending the text here because in the 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:04.720 Gita Vishnu slash Krishna is saying, look, I'm the prime 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:07.560 mover here, I'm the one who destroys you. Just do 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:11.320 your duty. Oppenheimer seems to be implying the opposite, that 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:14.920 there perhaps is no all powerful force that bears the 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:18.000 burden of our deeds, that the burden is instead on 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:20.959 the shoulders of those involved in the creation of such 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:24.120 a weapon. You know, when he's saying, you know, now 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:26.679 I am become death, and that we all felt that 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:29.559 way one way way or another. I mean, I mean, 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:33.120 he is, he is. He seems he's confronting the personal 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:36.520 responsibility that seems to be there in the creation of 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:37.160 such a weapon. 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:40.120 But so it does seem that there's this this double 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:43.440 terror in Oppenheimer's mind, like what if we fail? But 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:45.000 also what if we succeed? 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:49.679 Yeah, Yeah, that's something that Heigea gets into. You know, 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:53.200 this this idea that there's this immense fear of failure. 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:55.360 You know, what if we don't develop the bomb as 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:58.360 we've been tasked with and what will that mean for us? 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:01.760 But then, yeah, how much mass human death will be 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:05.319 brought into the world, even on the short term if 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:08.160 this is successful, without even getting into the way that 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:12.800 it will change the landscape of not only warfare and 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:17.120 potential warfare in global security, but just human civilization itself. 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:19.600 Yeah, there's so many ways you can track the impact 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:22.880 of the invention of nuclear weapons. Clearly one of them 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:26.080 is a sort of like world psychological impact. You know, 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:30.520 there's bomb consciousness in the world now that that sort 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:34.239 of will always be there unless nuclear weapons are entirely eliminated, 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:37.240 But even then they would there'd probably still be the 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:39.160 knowledge that they could be built again. 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:43.559 Yeah, this reminds me of one of Grant Morrison's creations 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:46.120 for the Doom Patrol comic book, the idea of the 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:51.880 candle Maker, this embodiment of all of our apprehension surrounding 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:55.760 nuclear annihilation that takes on this kind of godlike, really 0:11:55.800 --> 0:12:01.520 almost kind of terrifying, Vishnu like appearance in the human psyche. 0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:03.520 Is this the guy who's made of wax? 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:06.480 It is, and we'll have more to say about him 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:10.080 in a forthcoming October episode of Stuff to Blow Your mind. 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:11.920 Oh, that's right, it's almost October. 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:15.160 It is. But to come back to the part of 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:19.720 Oppenheimer's quote that is not part of the GETA, we 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:23.040 knew the world would not be the same, and that 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:26.920 that is true. It wasn't. It isn't, and you're probably 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:30.160 aware of most of the reasons why. But in today's episode, 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:33.840 we're going to look at some of the particular ways 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:38.400 that it was changed, particularly regarding you know, a few 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:42.360 environmental scenarios as well as the nature of steel. 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:46.680 Yes, So getting into these lesser known environmental effects, I 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:50.480 want to start with the fact that might seem extremely odd, 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:53.040 which I was reading about in an article published in 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:56.320 the journal Health Physics in two thousand and seven by 0:12:56.440 --> 0:13:00.520 a health physicist named Timothy P. Lynch, and the articles 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:05.480 called a historically significant shield for in vivo measurements, And 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:09.960 the fact goes like this. In Richland, Washington, there is 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:14.640 a research facility called the in Vivo Radio bio Assay 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:18.600 and Research Facility. And within this facility there is a 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:23.320 special room that is surrounded on all sides by thick 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:27.160 plates of steel that was once part of a World 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:31.480 War Two era battleship called the USS Indiana. This was 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:33.680 a battleship that served in the war. It was launched 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:36.480 in nineteen forty one. It was in a number of 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:40.160 battles It served extensively in the Pacific theater during the war, 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:44.959 and then after it was decommissioned, they took steel out 0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:49.040 of the ship to build this room. Why would anybody 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:49.400 do that? 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:52.920 Yeah, if you don't know the answer, it sounds a 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:55.520 bit mysterious, right all. It sounds like the kind of 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:57.640 thing Grant Morrison would make up where you're having to 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:02.600 engage in some sort of magical ritual involving steel from 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:03.360 old ships. 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:06.240 Oh yeah, yeah, it totally sounds like something magical, either 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:08.520 kind of magical or symbolic thinking of like, you know, 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:12.080 I'm gonna melt down the statue of the Golden Calf 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:14.760 for the false idol or king or whatever and turn 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:16.240 it into something holy. 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:18.280 I'm going to make a throne out of all the 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:20.640 swords of those who once opposed my rule. 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:23.960 Exactly. Yes, it is the iron throne. So this is 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:28.040 the iron throne of rooms. Now the room is again 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:33.400 an in vivo radio bioassay detector, and Lynch tells us 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:36.560 in the paper that quote the detection system is used 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:41.320 to monitor workers for intakes of fission and activation products. 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:45.320 So this means that it's used to check workers people 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:50.120 to see if they have ingested tiny radioactive particles known 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:55.240 as radionuclides. Radio nuclides consist of atoms that can decay 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:59.000 into different isotopes and emit radiation as they do so. 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:01.200 And if you take the into your body, say by 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:04.200 swallowing them or breathing them in, they can do this 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:08.640 inside your body and provide internal radiation sources which you 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:11.240 do not want. They can pose a serious health risk. 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:14.680 If enough of them accumulate in the body, a large 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:18.920 dose could cause acute radiation syndrome. Prolonged exposure to even 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:21.400 smaller doses over time could be a risk for damaging 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:25.920 DNA and causing cancer. This is to use one example 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:29.280 why you don't want to consume things that would come 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:33.240 from a radioactively contaminated area, you know, somewhere around a 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:36.000 nuclear meltdown. Why would you not want to, say, you know, 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:38.840 roll around in the dirt near Chernobyl or drink the 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:44.280 water there. It's because the environment is contaminated with radio nuclides, 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:47.280 these little particles that you don't want anywhere near your body. 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:50.640 You do not want them going inside you. So people 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:54.000 who get tested regularly in this room would include Department 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:56.920 of Energy workers. But Lynch also mentions that the room 0:15:57.000 --> 0:16:00.040 has been used to test a helicopter pilot and some 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:04.000 other workers from Chernobyl, as well as children from Chernobyl 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:06.840 I guess who lived nearby, So this has been in 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:10.400 use for a long time and it's used to measure 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:15.240 the radiation coming from living people. So somebody walks into 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:18.160 the detector room, they get scanned for radio nuclides across 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:20.520 the length of the body by a counting system that 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:26.640 Lynch describes as comprised of five coaxial germanium detectors. And 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:30.200 because the level of radiation emitted by these radio nuclides 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:33.520 is usually very faint outside the body, you need an 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:38.320 extremely sensitive detector. And here you hit another problem, which 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:43.080 is interference from background levels of radiation coming from the 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:47.720 rest of the world. So you've got cosmic sources, atmospheric sources, 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:51.880 terrestrial sources. So in order to scan the body properly, 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:56.760 you need a room with extremely tight radiation shielding and 0:16:56.840 --> 0:16:59.720 this is where the steel comes in. So the counting 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:02.720 chain here is surrounded by a thin layer of lead 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:07.120 and then cadmium and then copper. This is what's known 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:10.600 together as a graded Z shield. And then outside that 0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:15.720 you have thirty solid centimeters of steel that's all pre 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:20.200 war battleship steel, and this keeps the background radiation within 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:25.200 the chamber within low minimum detectable activities. But the question remains, Okay, 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:28.000 so you need thirty centimeters of steel, but why couldn't 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:31.080 you just build your radiation shield out of any old steel, Like, 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:34.159 if regular steel is good enough for your car and 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:37.480 your appliances and your skyscrapers, why would you have to 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:41.520 harvest the flesh of a decommissioned battleship in order to 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:43.280 build this thick radiation shield. 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:47.800 Yeah. Again, it's easy to sort of leap to magical conclusions. 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:50.439 It's kind of like, well, we live in a we 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:54.080 live in a sinful world. We have to build our 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:57.240 sacred vessel out of wood from the garden of Eden, 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:01.119 you know, you know, the atomic aid just so scarred 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:03.600 our world that we have to we have to find 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:05.800 artifacts from before that time. 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:08.240 Yeah, it certainly does feel like that, but no, there 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:11.960 is actually a very good physical, scientific reason for this, 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:14.000 and maybe we should take a break and then get 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:15.440 back into it when we come back. 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:19.760 All right, we're back. 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:24.000 So we've been talking about the idea of a radiation 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:28.439 shielding around a very sensitive radiation detector room. And the 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:32.000 shielding was made out of steel that was harvested from 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:36.359 a decommissioned World War II battleship called the USS Indiana. 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:38.520 So the question is, why would you need to get 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:40.600 steel from a source like that, Why couldn't you just 0:18:40.720 --> 0:18:44.159 use regular steel. Well, so let's look at how you 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:47.400 make steel. Steel is of course a mixture of iron 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:51.080 and carbon and sometimes other additives to create alloys with 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:55.480 special properties, and crucially for our purposes, the process for 0:18:55.600 --> 0:19:01.200 making steel involves the incorporation of atmospheric gas. I was 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:03.800 reading about this in an article for Chemistry World by 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:06.400 Kit Chapman. I think it was also a podcast episode 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:09.639 of THEIRS talking about how there are two major industrial 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:13.199 processes for making steel in the modern world. One is 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:16.760 known as the Bessemer process, and this involves melting the 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:20.800 iron in a furnace and then removing impurities by blowing 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:24.160 air through the molten metal. The other is known as 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:27.200 the Bos process, and this is similar but it uses 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:31.439 pure oxygen instead of air, but that oxygen is still 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:35.880 extracted from the atmosphere, and so the problem is that 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:40.359 either way, the gas you're blowing through the molten iron 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:44.000 to make your steel comes from the atmosphere, from the air. 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:48.800 And ever since nuclear weapon tests began in nineteen forty five, 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:51.400 that has not exactly been regular air. 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:55.879 It is bomb air, yeah, the gasly truth of it is, 0:19:56.640 --> 0:19:58.840 we find ourselves saying, oh, we need to use air 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:01.160 in this as like all that the air we breathe, 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:04.240 that's where we set off a whole lot of nuclear 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:07.760 weapons and therefore changed it. 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:11.000 That air is not good enough for our steel, for 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:13.200 the special steel, at least. 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:17.480 Just for our breathing and our food and our children 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:18.280 and so forth. 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:20.560 Now we'll get a bit more into the history of 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:23.280 the nuclear testing era in a second here, but in short, 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:25.399 there was a period of time in the middle of 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:28.880 the twentieth century when lots of nuclear weapons tests were 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:33.240 conducted around the world, and these tests seeded the atmosphere 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:38.159 with radioactive contamination. Now, the levels today are much lower 0:20:38.200 --> 0:20:41.160 than they were, say in the mid nineteen sixties, when 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:43.359 these tests have been going on for a decade and 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:46.399 a half, But even today the air still contains some 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:50.840 radioactive isotopes such as cobalt sixty and others that is 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:55.680 left over from the hundreds of nuclear detonations that characterize 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:58.720 the post war period. Now this had many effects, of course, 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:01.000 the most important of which are probaly like the health 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:04.520 effects on humans and the effects on wildlife. But another 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:06.919 one of the effects is that for a long time 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:11.840 you couldn't make steel via normal processes without it being 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:17.200 potentially contaminated with radioactive particles. Not so many radioactive particles 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:20.440 that it would be unsafe for regular use, but enough 0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:23.080 that it would be unsuitable if you were trying to 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:25.479 make a sensitive instrument. So if you needed to make 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:30.359 a Geiger counter or shielding for a sensitive radio bioassay chamber, 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:35.320 So what would you do. Well, it probably wasn't impossible 0:21:35.440 --> 0:21:39.399 to make steel without environmental contaminants from nuclear tests, but 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:43.600 it would have been expensive and difficult. And another option 0:21:43.720 --> 0:21:48.320 presented itself, which was harvesting steel made before the Trinity 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:53.080 test in nineteen forty five, and this precious material became 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:57.160 known in the industry as low background steel. Low background 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:00.960 because of its low background radiation, and what would be 0:22:01.040 --> 0:22:04.920 a great source of huge quantities of pre bombed steel 0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:09.399 old naval vessels. So, to come back to the Timothy 0:22:09.480 --> 0:22:12.640 Lynch article about the radio bio assay facility in Richland, 0:22:13.440 --> 0:22:16.719 the USS Indiana was again the battleship that was sourced 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:19.600 was the source here. It was decommissioned on September eleventh, 0:22:19.680 --> 0:22:23.000 nineteen forty seven, and then sold for scrap after it 0:22:23.080 --> 0:22:26.399 was taken off the navy list in June first, nineteen 0:22:26.520 --> 0:22:30.200 sixty two. And as the ship was dismantled, some parts 0:22:30.200 --> 0:22:33.679 were kept for ceremonial purposes, like the main mast and 0:22:33.720 --> 0:22:36.399 a forty millimeter gun were put on display on the 0:22:36.400 --> 0:22:39.800 campus of India University, Bloomington. And I know some of 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:43.600 its anchors were put on display at various museums and memorials. 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:45.919 You know, its compasses, wheels and all that went to 0:22:46.359 --> 0:22:49.120 places where you can honor the fallen ships. 0:22:50.000 --> 0:22:53.720 Wow, this really drives home this metaphor of the ship 0:22:53.840 --> 0:22:56.360 is a fallen beast, like the warship is a thing 0:22:56.400 --> 0:22:59.480 that once dead. You know that certain parts are kept 0:22:59.480 --> 0:23:04.439 for like ceremonial purposes or display purposes, magical purposes, and 0:23:04.520 --> 0:23:07.760 yet other things are harvested for the raw meter bone 0:23:07.800 --> 0:23:08.000 of the. 0:23:08.280 --> 0:23:11.360 Creature right, and the raw meter bone would be the steel. 0:23:11.400 --> 0:23:13.320 Here the s made up the bulk of the ship 0:23:13.840 --> 0:23:17.159 was put to low background uses. So in Indiana, VA 0:23:17.200 --> 0:23:21.160 Hospital got sixty five tons of low background steel from 0:23:21.200 --> 0:23:25.600 the Indiana and that was used for their own background 0:23:25.680 --> 0:23:29.760 radiation counting facilities. But then lynch Write's quote. In addition 0:23:29.800 --> 0:23:33.160 to the VA Hospital facility, several large sections of the hull, 0:23:33.200 --> 0:23:36.200 weighing a total of two hundred and ten tons, were 0:23:36.200 --> 0:23:40.720 also fabricated into a room. These applications were probably never 0:23:40.800 --> 0:23:44.720 imagined by the original designers of the Indiana. These sections 0:23:44.760 --> 0:23:47.280 of the hull are still being used for the original 0:23:47.280 --> 0:23:51.080 purpose as a shield, but instead of protecting against artillery 0:23:51.119 --> 0:23:54.800 shells and torpedoes, the new purpose is to shield radiation 0:23:54.960 --> 0:23:59.960