Irradiated Dimes (2010)

Re:Irradiated Dimes (2010) by codewritinfool on Monday October 23, 2017 @03:11PM (#15536051)

But WHY do this at all? Is it because of public fascination with anything "atomic"? Good public relations? I don't get it. Because of little or no residual effects, why not just press the times into a souvenir holder and skip the irradiation altogether? It all just seems odd to me.

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Re:Irradiated Dimes (2010) by the8472 on Monday October 23, 2017 @05:10PM (#15536957)

It's a demonstration of neutron irradiation. The lack of residual effects does not negate the coin becoming directly associated with that demonstration in memory.

If it helps making people aware of the process that's a good thing. Think about radioactive waste.

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Re:Irradiated Dimes (2010) by badmin_ on Monday October 23, 2017 @07:02PM (#15537654)

This is the cheap go-to method for fusor enthusiasts to check for fast neutron production.

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Re:Irradiated Dimes (2010) by pavel_lishin on Monday October 23, 2017 @03:19PM (#15536123)

Scarcity, and being able to prove that you went there and got your dime irradiated.

Anyone could press a dime into a fancy container, but a fake could be easily detected with a geiger counter. There was no other way to irradiate dimes at the time.

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Re:Irradiated Dimes (2010) by SirLuxuryYacht on Tuesday October 24, 2017 @01:08AM (#15539363)

>The only activity that might be detected today would be due to trace quantities of Ag-108m, but it would require long counts and relatively sophisticated equipment. I could not detect any in the three coins in the collection.

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Re:Irradiated Dimes (2010) by ginko on Monday October 23, 2017 @04:28PM (#15536690)

I can see the fascination. In a way it's a philosopher's stone turning one element(silver) into another(cadmium). Of course the reaction is in the opposite way you'd want it to go but still.

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Re:Irradiated Dimes (2010) by B1FF_PSUVM on Monday October 23, 2017 @04:33PM (#15536726)

> But WHY do this at all?

"I have seen the future, and it works", an infamous phrase if there ever was one, did not come out of the blue.

For three centuries now, we've been groomed to expect bountiful marvels out the "unstoppable progress" of history. Which, incidentally, is a novel concept, not present in human discourse before the XVIII century.

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Re:Irradiated Dimes (2010) by microtherion on Monday October 23, 2017 @04:27PM (#15536684)

I wonder whether the dimes remained legal tender in this process. You could have paid a parking fine with a stack of them...

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Re:Irradiated Dimes (2010) by godelski on Monday October 23, 2017 @05:26PM (#15537065)

The great answer to "Why" is "because you can".

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Re:Irradiated Dimes (2010) by pmiller2 on Monday October 23, 2017 @10:06PM (#15538676)

Yes, both of those things. You have to keep in mind this is the era immediately following WW2, so there was both a fascination with and fear of things "atomic."

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