Experiment Prep
Here is an assembled alpha emitter core for tests. It has a center of Thorium from lantern mantles, Americium from smoke detectors and Uranium-Oxide from the glaze of old dishes. It is wrapped in aluminum foil. The strong alpha emitters knock some neutrons loose from the aluminum. Labs with more money use things like Beryllium instead of aluminum which is radically more effective. But, this works!
These blocks are Tungsten Oxide, VERY heavy! You would not be able to carry a shoe box filled with it. It is also nearly exactly the exact density as gold. Tu has been gold-plated and used to make fraudulent gold coins and blocks of gold bullion.
Its sort of a Jenga/Tetris kind of thing to figure out how to setup my limited supply of Tungsten blocks to serve an experiment
Getting control measurements, seeing how much natural background radiation is hitting the meter in various configurations with none my sources near.
Now I put the core, or "pit" as I call it, into the Tungsten shielding/reflector. Did some control measurements and then put wax into the mix. Wax is very hydrocarbon dense and does a good job of moderating the neutrons which come whizzing out at incredible speeds. It turns them into "thermal neutrons" or researches also call them "useful" neutrons. My Geiger measurements go up when I put the paraffin in between the source and counter. Meaning I am now unlikely to be picking up any Alpha particles, they can't make it through the wax, but some Beta will, and the Gamma zips through but gets slowed down.
Trying different configurations of the Tungston and testing results.
Now its time to see what Gamma radiation does to an MP3 player! So I set it all up, close it and then start checking on it regularly to see if the MP3 player has been killed. It did not. I either need to leave it in longer, get a stronger source, or both. And its of course possible that my methodology here has flaws!
More to follow.
