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Low-Background Steel

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Re: Low-Background Steel

#51

Post by philipswood »

Razengan wrote: post #7
crispyporkbites wrote: post #4

Im always curious how we will send messages to future civilizations. How will we ensure we’ll be remembered or even noted in 10,000, 100,000, 1 million years? How can we prevent the same disaster(s) that eventually wipes our civilisation out from repeating again in future intelligent generations (human or otherwise) Could environmental markers like these be the way? After all, it’s how we look at the past today

We already know what can last for literally millions of years: Life. Maybe we could encode some information in birdsong, tree rings, or the matting patterns drawn by fish in the seafloor. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpdlQae5wP8

A SF short story about a biologically encoded message from ancient aliens (written by one of the Autodesk founders): We'll Return, After This Message by John Walker

https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/sftriple/gpic.

Re: Low-Background Steel

#52

Post by ars »

chrisbrandow wrote: post #35
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.

Extremely difficult to separate different molecules that differ by only the weight of a single neutron.

They are using Oxygen, Oxygen can't become radioactive for longer than a few seconds anyway.

All they need to do is filter for pure oxygen, nitrogen is fine as well.

It's really just CO2 that's the problem.

Re: Low-Background Steel

#53

Post by ars »

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?

Just filter for oxygen. Radioactive oxygen doesn't last more than a few seconds.

The issue is contamination with Carbon (CO2). Nitrogen also is not a problem.

Re: Low-Background Steel

#54

Post by ars »

nwallin wrote: post #48
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…

> steel smelting processes that do not introduce air into the steel.

Air is perfectly fine. Both Oxygen and Nitrogen do not stay radioactive for longer than a few seconds. It's CO2 that is the problem, specifically the carbon.

And of course any other random impurity.

They could just use cryogenicaly distilled air, and take the nitrogen-oxygen part (the boiling points are very close).

Re: Low-Background Steel

#55

Post by Godel_unicode »

nwallin wrote: post #48
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…

Iron bottom sound would definitely be a better bet, although the fact that it's a grave site definitely gives pause. Scapa Flow is relatively unique in that it's a large collection of ships, without being a grave site, and being near the surface.

Re: Low-Background Steel

#56

Post by ars »

philipswood wrote: post #51
Razengan wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already know what can last for literally millions of years: Life. Maybe we could encode some information in birdsong, tree rings, or the matting patterns drawn by fish in the seafloor. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpdlQae5wP8

A SF short story about a biologically encoded message from ancient aliens (written by one of the Autodesk founders): We'll Return, After This Message by John Walker https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/sftriple/gpic .

The link seems broken? Should be: https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/sftriple/gpic.html

Re: Low-Background Steel

#57

Post by shantara »

Razengan wrote: post #7
crispyporkbites wrote: post #4

Im always curious how we will send messages to future civilizations. How will we ensure we’ll be remembered or even noted in 10,000, 100,000, 1 million years? How can we prevent the same disaster(s) that eventually wipes our civilisation out from repeating again in future intelligent generations (human or otherwise) Could environmental markers like these be the way? After all, it’s how we look at the past today

We already know what can last for literally millions of years: Life. Maybe we could encode some information in birdsong, tree rings, or the matting patterns drawn by fish in the seafloor. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpdlQae5wP8

This reminds me of Whisper, one of my favorite exotic alien concepts. The alien civilization in question has selected a planet with as stable environment as possible, and planted it full of genetically engineered grass. The sound of wind blowing through the grass creates an acoustic computer which hosts a virtual space its creators have uploaded themselves into.

https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/470007b39d192

Re: Low-Background Steel

#58

Post by eru »

zucker42 wrote: post #31
crispyporkbites wrote: post #4

Im always curious how we will send messages to future civilizations. How will we ensure we’ll be remembered or even noted in 10,000, 100,000, 1 million years? How can we prevent the same disaster(s) that eventually wipes our civilisation out from repeating again in future intelligent generations (human or otherwise) Could environmental markers like these be the way? After all, it’s how we look at the past today

If you knew that a past civilization or even non-human intelligent species had been wiped out by war or climate change, would it change your actions? I don't know there's much we could say that future civilizations would care to listen to.

It would certainly be big news.

Re: Low-Background Steel

#59

Post by flywheel »

xattt wrote: post #6
Cerium wrote: post #3

This comes up on HN every now and then, it is how I learned about low background steel. If this is new to you, you may also enjoy reading about the cesium content of wine: https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/07/19/141390/fukushima...

Is there a particular trigger for this post? Is this a case of someone stumbling into the concept and wanting to share it with the world? Is there some trend in SV around low-background steel right now? Genuinely curious about the phenomenon of posts around topics that have a great deal of understanding and aren’t necessarily trending in the general news cycle.

The 75th anniversary of the first nuclear bomb test was just a few days ago, on July 16th. It's been in the news a bit lately, and this topic is related.

Re: Low-Background Steel

#60

Post by nix23 »

saagarjha wrote: post #33
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.

Not valuable enough to bother.

So salvage it from sunken ships is cheaper then?
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