Low-Background Steel • Hacker News Board

Re: Low-Background Steel

#41

Post by whoisjuan » Sun, Jul 19, 2020, 5:25 AM UTC

Can it be recycled without contamination of existing radiation in other elements used to melt it and such?

I mean how do they create the instruments in the first place and keep the radiation low?

Re: Low-Background Steel

#42

Post by TimSchumann » Sun, Jul 19, 2020, 5:42 AM UTC

garmaine wrote: post #37

oh_sigh wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why manufacturers don't just use filtered atmospheric air in the process to create low-background steel, if it is infact valuable.

How do you suggest filtering by isotope?

I mean, there are ways to do this. None of which are remotely cost effective.

Re: Low-Background Steel

#43

Post by number6 » Sun, Jul 19, 2020, 5:52 AM UTC

garmaine wrote: post #37

oh_sigh wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why manufacturers don't just use filtered atmospheric air in the process to create low-background steel, if it is infact valuable.

How do you suggest filtering by isotope?

Centrifuges

Re: Low-Background Steel

#44

Post by renewiltord » Sun, Jul 19, 2020, 5:58 AM UTC

number6 wrote: post #43

garmaine wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you suggest filtering by isotope?

Centrifuges

This stuff is useful, but it isn't that useful that you're going to sift and build an entire toolchain.

Re: Low-Background Steel

#45

Post by superjan » Sun, Jul 19, 2020, 5:59 AM UTC

A few years ago it was in the news that several militairy shipwrecks vanished in indonesia waters[0], presumably plundered for the steel.

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37997640

Re: Low-Background Steel

#46

Post by tshoaib » Sun, Jul 19, 2020, 6:08 AM UTC

These isotopes are also used to help spot fake art

https://physicsworld.com/a/nuclear-fallout-used-to-spot-fake...

Re: Low-Background Steel

#47

Post by shmerl » Sun, Jul 19, 2020, 6:15 AM UTC

Can you make such steel by using clean air? Or it's not possible to purify it from radionuclides?

Re: Low-Background Steel

#48

Post by nwallin » Sun, Jul 19, 2020, 6:16 AM UTC

w0mbat wrote: post #8

The scene of the battle of Midway would also hold a hoard of nice steel (the Japanese lost a lot of ships including aircraft carriers). I understand that Scapa Flow has been heavily salvaged with only 7 out of 52 ships still down there.

The Battle of Midway was fought in spectacularly deep water, on the order of 17,000-18,000 feet deep. This would make salvaging difficult, if not impossible. Scapa Flow is shallow enough for divers.

Once we run out of cheaply salvageable steel, we'll likely turn to steel smelting processes that do not introduce air into the steel. These processes require dramatically more energy and are thus more expensive, but will still be way less expensive than attempting to salvage at deep ocean depths.

Re: Low-Background Steel

#49

Post by ad404b8a372f2b9 » Sun, Jul 19, 2020, 6:44 AM UTC

Gaelan wrote: post #40

confeit wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw it linked from the comments on a Tweet by Karpathy and found it intellectually curious. > By posting GPT generated text we’re polluting the data for its future versions https://twitter.com/karpathy/status/1284660899198820352

You seem to have gotten your replies mixed up. This looks like it's for the GPT "Bitcoin" thread?

No, low-background steel is mentioned in the replies. It's similar in the sense that GPT-3 generated text is going to contaminate the data we collect from now on.

Re: Low-Background Steel

#50

Post by pengaru » Sun, Jul 19, 2020, 6:45 AM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #24

goatsi wrote: post #5

Low-background lead is also sought after in shipwrecks [0]. With lead it isn't contamination from nuclear tests that's the issue, but natural radioactivity that needs hundreds of years to decay. [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/10/search-d...

And here https://physicsworld.com/a/ancient-romans-join-neutrino-hunt... I had some low radiation lead for a while, makes for an interesting curio. As I recall its providence was re-melted musket balls from a shipwreck in the Bahamas.

nit: provenance