Skip to main content

Natural plutonium-containing mineral


"The sample I have representing plutonium is the naturally occurring mineral muromontite, which is a mixture of uranium and beryllium. Putting beryllium near uranium is generally considered a bad idea because the alpha particles from the decay of uranium are captured by the beryllium atoms, which in turn release neutrons. Neutrons are very unhealthy to be around.
In the case of this sample, however, the neutrons are in turn re-captured by the uranium, which then undergoes further decay and is transformed into plutonium. The result is that this mineral contains the highest known naturally occurring concentration of plutonium."
periodictable.com

Comments

Anonymous said…
Lots of quite good reading here, many thanks! I was checking on yahoo when I uncovered your post, I’m going to add your feed to Google Reader, I look forward to more from you.

Popular posts from this blog

Paddington

Ley Lines #1

The concept of "ley lines" is generally thought of in relation to Alfred Watkins, but the stimulus and background for the concept is attributed to the English astronomer Norman Lockyer . [3] [4] [5] On 30 June 1921, Watkins visited Blackwardine in Herefordshire , and went riding a horse near some hills in the vicinity of Bredwardine , when he noted that many of the footpaths there seemed to connect one hilltop to another in a straight line. [6] He was studying a map when he noticed places in alignment. "The whole thing came to me in a flash", he later told his son. [7] It has been suggested that Watkin's experience stemmed from faint memories of an account in September 1870 by William Henry Black given to the British Archaeological Association in Hereford titled Boundaries and Landmarks , in which he speculated that "Monuments exist marking grand geometrical lines which cover the whole of Western Europe". [8] Watkins believed that, in ancie...

Connection #4 - Averroes to Yacoub Almansour

Abū 'l-Walīd Muḥammad bin Aḥmad bin Rushd ( Arabic : أبو الوليد محمد بن احمد بن رشد ‎), better known just as Ibn Rushd ( Arabic : ابن رشد ‎), and in European literature as Averroes (pronounced /əˈvɛroʊ.iːz/ ) (1126 – December 10, 1198), was an Andalusian Muslim polymath ; a master of Aristotelian philosophy, Islamic philosophy , Islamic theology , Maliki law and jurisprudence , logic , psychology , politics , Arabic music theory, and the sciences of medicine , astronomy , geography , mathematics , physics and celestial mechanics . He was born in Córdoba , Al Andalus , modern-day Spain , and died in Marrakech , modern-day Morocco . His school of philosophy is known as Averroism . He has been described by some [1] as the founding father of secular thought in Western Europe and "one of the spiritual fathers of Europe ," [2] although other scholars oppose such claims. Wikipedia Averroes (Abonlwalid Mo'hammed ibn Abmed ibn Mo'hnmmed ibu-Roschd) was ...