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Comment by jamal-kumar | Hacker News Reader

I found a piece of trinitite cleaning out my friend's grandma's place after she passed away. It's labelled 1942 NEW MEXICO TRINITY, she apparently was involved in the manhattan project somehow. We didn't know whether it was dangerous or not so we invested in a geiger counter to make sure we didn't just discover a superfund site in a pill bottle in the medicine cabinet. It's fine.

I cannot for the life of me find a professional jeweler with the balls to wrap it. They all get mad at me like I'm trying to poison them when there's really more radioactive particles being emitted from bananas.

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> It's labelled 1942 NEW MEXICO TRINITY, she apparently was involved in the manhattan project somehow.

Tritinite souvenirs were popular until the government made it illegal to collect it.

Someone from that era possessing a piece doesn’t mean they were part of the Manhattan Project.

I'm going by what I was told and photos I saw...

Why are Americans always so quick to cast shade? This is the comments section, I'm not about to write an essay about all the details here.

Because you didn’t mention any photos? You just said you found a piece of tritinite, not that you found photos and stories of her involvement.

Sorry, not trying to “cast shade”. Just trying to clarify they tritinite by itself isn’t exceptionally rare nor did it require involvement in the Manhattan Project to acquire. You can buy pieces of it online from places like United Nuclear.

They got rid of that gif on their front page that had the guy with the rapidly moving eyebrows asking if you were looking for any uranium. That was the best

I think it's pertinent information to know. I found their comment interesting.

Well, the details are at least somewhat impeached by the fact that she got the date wrong (or you did, in your comment). There was no Trinitite to be had at Los Alamos until 1945.

Could easily be a reference to when Roosevelt formally authorizes the atomic bomb project in January 1942 or her related involvement etc.

Honestly commemorating the projects start date make the story more believable in my mind not less.

I found a couple of cool rocks...

I dunno people's incredulousness as of late on the most mundane of things makes them look kinda like they're missing something

I think there has been some misunderstanding here, most people read "she apparently was involved in the manhattan project somehow" as "based on the fact that she had this, I think she must have been involved in the Manhattan project as there is no other way that she would have it" whereas what you meant was "I know from other sources that she was involved in the Manhattan project"

> Why are Americans always so quick to cast shade?

Not sure it’s an American thing, but it’s definitely a thing here in HN, a lot of times it’s not that bad, but it does feel crappy

I left the continent to get away from that shit.

It's tiring as hell

I don't understand what happened in this thread that is so bad, you told a story and gave (what seemed like, because of the "apparently") a guess as to what happened and someone else offered another possible explanation that you might not have known?

I guess I'm in the wrong place to try to explain to anyone involved why being a know-it-all is insufferable

I thought it was useful and interesting information? You don't have to feel attacked by it

I reserve the right to find it to be a very annoying behaviour that has cropped up in recent years, especially with people who spend way too much time on the internet, and I think I got enough upvotes to know that there's others who at least silently agree

I don’t understand why anyone would upvote your comments (past the first one), they don’t add anything to the discussion

If you find having a discussion annoying, then as you said you’re probably on the wrong website

They clearly agree that it's irritating nonsense to immediately disparage someone relating an anecdote, something you have now admitted that you have a problem grasping

You left the continent to escape americans but still use our social media? Doesn't that defeat the purpose?

Show me an equivalent to this in other languages and I'll go spend my time there instead

You make less sense the more you comment…

एक बार अपना लंड चुसवा लो

Oh, they are just trying be "factually helpful" (not that I think it's a particularly helpful contribution)

I didn't think above was shade, but I'm only Canadian :(

not only was he not casting shade, commenter actually added information to the conversation.

You're not sure it's safe, unless you've got an Alpha particle detector, which you didn't mention. Also, the internals of it might be an alpha emitter, and only get exposed on grinding.

I wouldn't do anything that might abrade it. I'd say the jewelers are right.

I literally got one of those and mentioned this

The metal tube that most Geiger tubes are made out of stops alpha particles. Unless you've tested your detector with a known alpha source, it's useless for radiological survey use.

OK while we're obviously on different pages on knowledge domains here, when I say wrap I mean like 10000 year old wire-wrap style. No messing up the thing at all, pretty much just wrapping it in gold for earrings or something and maybe adding something else like some glass with a radiation symbol in it or something

Does that still pose a significant risk of any sort?

I'm not doubting that GP is correct because I'm not an expert, but I don't understand the importance attached to alpha particle detection. Alpha particles generally can't make it through human skin, and are these materials are not dangerous to handle unless ingested/inhaled (although I wouldn't recommend wearing it either) It's the other higher-energy forms of radiation (beta, gamma, neutron) that pose the more dangerous radiation poisoning threats

That's really what I figured too

they mentioned using a Geiger counter, does that count?

seems like it can: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3228631/

Grinding such materials produces airborne particulate that lingers for days.

I'd be concerned if that process involves anything like grinding or cutting to shape. Particularly with alpha-emitter nuclides, things that otherwise are harmless and inert might become less so when there's inhalable dust involved.

I wonder where the 1942 comes from. At that time nobody knew that there would a test named Trinity and trinitite was also 3 years away.

Again she worked on it, at least tangenitally. I think I remember her husband did too

I'm probably remembering numbers wrong though

Maybe labeled years later with the date referring to the year she started working there.

As a data point, did you try to get any of them to wrap bananas?

That would be an interesting thing to do actually. Since the banana just goes bad and squishy what you'd be left with is a cool banana-shaped wireframe to hang from the ceiling in a tropical bungalow

I might actually do this

Is it irresponsible to just not tell the jeweler what it is? You’ve already confirmed that it’s not radioactive.

They won't hear me out, tried a few times. People don't know a damn thing about this stuff they just assume you're insane for even touching it

Keep in mind these are the same people who are afraid of microwave ovens

Hell even we were a little freaked out of it enough to go hit a scientific supply shop before realizing it's well past its half-life

Did you try saying “hear me out” in a TikTok millennial monotone tone?

No I went gen Z and said "no cap this radioactive rock be bussin but lowkey safe"

You're being rather aggressively dog-piled on in this thread. How odd.

Well responded, love the irony here. True connoisseur of expression.

I wasn’t really sure how you’d respond to my comment, but this is actually kind of funny.

> it's well past its half-life

I'm not sure that's how half-lives work...

Not sure exactly what the OP means by "wrap it", but if you are asking a jeweler to grind it then yes, it would be irresponsible not to mention, even if you thought it was clean. Ingesting/breathing has the potential to be dangerous.

Hunter Scott has a fun article where his friend helped him test his sample in a lab -- https://www.hscott.net/analyzing-trinitite-a-radioactive-pie...

By wrap it, I mean wrap it in gold

Wire wrap jewelry right now is a big thing

Nobody needs to grind a thing that would be such a waste, it's a very brittle silicate. That link is really interesting however it says you pretty much have to eat the stuff for it to have any ill effect. Sand for breakfast, anyone?

- "So, ignoring alpha and beta radiation,"

I think most of the radiation in that sample is alpha. The gamma peak they measured the 2nd-highest count for is the 59 keV from Am-241. The invisible monster they can't detect is the 5,486 keV alpha generated by that same isotope. That's the main hazard there—should someone remove the sample from the glass vial and somehow get significant exposure to dust. (Otherwise, the glass is more than sufficient shielding).

It’s pretty unethical to withhold information from people who wouldn’t do the work if they had this information .

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