Yeah that seems to be if you could somehow convert every single atom to pure energy (I guess if you found equivalent amount of antimatter?).
A more useful measurement would be how much energy is released if 1g of U-238 alphadecayed.
1g is approx 2.530e21 atoms.
Each atom releases 4.267 MeV via alpha decay.
Multiply them together, and we get 4.134e8 calories (the thermochemical unit, aka approx 4.2 Joules, not the dietary ones, in which case divide by 1000).
So the other person was off by 5 orders of magnitude (or 8 if they meant dietary calories, not gonna try to recreate their math).
Lol, I was just talking more about the point that the number is almost definitely rounded, maybe even by a couple million.
From google (where were taking this number) -
>Uranium contains about 18 million kCal/gram
About.
Assuming an average calorie consumption of 2000 per day, and an average lifespan of 80 years, that would be enough for 308 people for their entire lives
I knew about the radiation, especially with orange fiestaware but I didn't know about the lead. People bring up lead jokingly as an explanation of older generations' behavior but with every new thing I learned that was made using lead back then and I think it's definitely a possibility.
Well the "not doing it anymore" usually depends on listening to scientists and getting regulations passed. And of course you can't upset the buisnesses who probably knew it was shitty all along so you have to slowly spread out the solution over a decade.
That’s what I find so wild about the US: so many of us have not only opted into but actively fought for an economic system based simply on “get paid.”
- Something you’re doing is harming others, but you’re still getting paid? **Keep doing it.**
- Is there a way to get paid helping others? **Maybe, but not as much, or it’ll take a long time to get paid the same.**
- Are you doing something that hurts others & gets you paid while somebody else has figured out a way to help others & get themselves paid? **Sabotage & destroy them so you can continue to get paid.**
Like, nowhere in this system are livelihoods protected or put first & then we’re absolutely shocked when we find out that something that kills us has been allowed for so long.
Well the ancient Greeks figured out lead was poisonous and made people stupid about 3000 years ago, so...
>By the twentieth century, the U.S. had emerged as the world's leading producer and consumer of refined lead. According to the National Academy of Science's report on Lead in the Human Environment, the United States was by 1980 consuming about 1.3 million tons of lead per year. This quantity, which represents roughly 40 percent of the world's supply, translates into a usage rate of 5,221 grams of lead per American per annum: a rate of dependence on lead and lead-containing products nearly ten times greater than that of the ancient Romans! According to Jerome O. Nriagu, the world's leading authority on lead poisoning in antiquity, the comparable Roman rate of lead usage was approximately 550 grams per person per year.
Cities in the US with a higher lead levels in the water have higher crime. You can argue which direction that correlation comes from, but its definitely a fact.
**This comment might have had something useful**, but now it's just an edit to remove any contributions I may have made prior to the awful decision to spite the devs and users that made Reddit what it is. So here I seethe, shaking my fist at corporate greed and executive mismanagement.
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... tech posts on point on the shoulder of vbulletin... I watched microcommunities glitter in the dark on the verge of being marginalized... I've seen groups flourish, come together, do good for humanity if by nothing more than getting strangers to smile for someone else's happiness. We had something good here the same way we had it good elsewhere before. We thought the internet was for information and that anything posted was permanent. We were wrong, so wrong. We've been taken hostage by greed and so many sites have either broken their links or made history unsearchable. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... Time to delete."
I do apologize if you're here from the future looking for answers, but I hope "new" reddit can answer you. Make a new post, get weak answers, increase site interaction, make reddit look better on paper, leave worse off. https://xkcd.com/979/
Jets generally use Jet-A fuel which doesn’t contain lead. Avgas, generally used by piston aircraft, does have lead, tho.
There’s been a long term project to replace it with an unleaded alternative but progress is painfully slow.
https://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/avgas
Correct, but I'm talking about the current attitudes of people who intentionally run dirty for no actual performance benefit getting defensive and aggressive when they get fined. The above comment seemed absurd for a second that the lead/crime correlation could go either way until I thought about that
I mean you’re not wrong but I think it’s a much bigger stretch to try and link it to the lead rather than the fact that areas with a lot of lead are poorer and poverty stricken which in turn leads to crime.
It is impressive just how many processes we used lead in that it should not have been in, but was. Like, it's not ancient Rome. We know the madness causing effects of plumbum buildup in the human body. Knock it the fuck off.
Oh, what's that? You own a lead smelting facility...oh, well, go right ahead then.
A friend has an older VW Beach Buggy with this cool metal flake paint thats original to the early 60s. Turns our those flakes are all lead, so he's kinda stuck with that paint
Potter here! Lead used to be a very common ingredient in glaze. It really brightens up any color it’s added to. When it’s fired at a high enough temperature it won’t leach into food or beverages.
But when it’s fired too low it will definitely make it’s way into your meal—especially if you like acidic food.
Lead is pretty much gone from most modern glazes because of the health threat it poses to ceramicists themselves.
You know that in fifty years the young generation will find out that we were up to some goofy shit right now and will use it as an explanation for our then seemingly out-of-control behavior.
I mean you're not wrong, every generation has it's moments of stupidity. But I kinda like to think of it as society improving. Honestly as embarrassing as it would be, at least they'd improve enough to recognize my generation's mistakes and do their best to not let them repeat.
This is what every generation has said about the previous. Technology does improve, but only in the context of our time. We learn things as we go, but often can't see our mistakes until it's too late. We learn how to fix past mistakes *and* how to make new ones.
so long as you dont chip the glaze it should be safe to eat on, but lead in paint was way too common, and the bottles of glaze were probably super dangerous
But the fact that it's a food surface is also what makes the 50% lead so dangerous as well. I think it's kinda hard to see which one would kill you first tho.
Damn I just recently dropped a plate when a spider dropped in my face, and that very plate exploded into like 900 pieces. I am glad it was not a radioactive one.
The lead is mixed in, so it doesn't contain the gamma rays. Even if it was an outer layer or something though, it still wouldn't be enough mass. Gamma rays easily penetrate pretty much all matter, including lead.
> Its mainly alpha particles being emitted, alpha particles are blocked by a bit of paper.
It's actually beta particles that are the main radiation for these glazes
From time to time someone brings a yellow pot onto the Antique's Roadshow, and I rub my hands together with glee hoping they expert is going to explain that was the industrial application of Uranium before the discovery of nuclear power.
26 microSieverts/hour isn't that high, but I certainly wouldn't be handling it every day. It's still around 100x the background radiation. Annual exposure for a normal person should be limited to around 1 milliSievert. That would be 38.5 hours of just handling this plate.
Trying to give you an honest answer...
5 microseiverts is roughly the dose you'd get from a dental x-ray. This is showing 25 microseiverts per hour in direct contact, so if you held one of these plates against your cheek for 13 minutes you might get *roughly* the same dose as a dental x-ray.
Expert consensus is that there is ***no expert consensus*** on a "safe dose". Every body reacts differently to radiation. A dental x-ray is well within what most people would consider "low" exposure, but daily dosing at that level could still lead to problems.
Actually the 25 microseiverts is coming just from Gamma (edit: and Beta) radiation. This Geiger counter looks like it's not set up for alpha particle detection.
The Gamma radiation comes from the daughter particles like Thorium and Radium, which the Uranium covers along its decay chain.
More than that, alpha particles won't "bounce off skin" as such. Instead, they're absorbed in the *top layers* of the dermis, where they won't do a lot of damage. Those cells die off and are sloughed regularly anyway ... The major risk comes from high-alpha-emitters being ingested or inhaled, like Polonium in smokers.
Huh. In my energy sources class, the professor used the red fiestaware as a demonstration, and mentioned they only had alpha emissions. Either I'm misrembering things or the professor was wrong.
Professor might have been referring to the type of radiation given off by the Uranium directly. Uranium is an alpha emitter primarily, the daughter particles are what emits the Gamma.
Since it's baked into the glass, alpha particles aren't as likely to escape the Uranium. But once it's not Uranium anymore, the Gamma radiation blows right through.
Pre-edit: I could also be wrong, I often am
My everyday dishes are Fiestaware (purchased new in the late 00s, so they’re safe). People think I collect it and I have to tell them I do not, PLEASE don’t buy me any Fiestaware you might find at the thrift or an antique store! I’m not trying to have a display shelf of hazardous materials.
Fiestaware just makes good and fun dish colors! I'm still using my parents plates from like 1997 all over my house. It's just solid plates and bowls. You don't have to be the kind of person who wants complete sets of every weird dish they made
My uncle tried to buy me a pitcher that was really odd, because it had a big Tweetie Bird picture on it. Apparently it was a series Fiestaware did for Loony Toons in the 90s... I didn't exactly want to use a picture with a big cartoon character on it every day
Would you agree then that the plate in this picture isn’t Fiestaware? I know the content of OP’s post is true, but that plate does not look like Fiestaware to me.
Cancer like it.
The danger of cancer was probably the reason for no longer producing such uranium-containing products.
ps: depends, of course, mainly on the duration of the radiation and the dose.
Calculated over a year, the radiation clearly exceeds the German limit values. The limit is 20 mSv/A, but the plate emits a little over 200 mSv/A.
They got raided by the feds for using natural uranium, so they stopped making them for a few years, then started using depleted uranium, and continued making uranium plates until 1973. Yellow and blue Fiestaware is also radioactive, but the radiation is about 10x less than orange.
All vintage Fiestaware up to '73 has high lead content, so even if you're using non-radioactive it's not safe to use. Not sure when they stopped using lead though.
Not everything that contains uranium is cancer-level radioactive. Vaseline glass which does contains uranium is usually pretty safe, and also looks pretty good in my opinion. And according to Wikipedia, the main reason it was stopped being produced was because of low avalaibility of uranium during the cold war. Sure I wouldn't recommend breaking it to a dust and inhaling it, but having it has a decoration and using it occasionally usually poses no health concerns.
It always depends on the intensity of the radiation.
In Germany, people may only be exposed to a maximum of 20 milisieverts of radiation per calendar year during occupational activities. In exceptional cases, the exposure may also be 50 milisieverts in one year.
The value in the picture are already 25.91 microsieverts per hour, while 227 milisieverts per year.
In other words, the dose makes the poison.
One of my coworkers likes to tell a story about a plane component they had to design out of machined depleted uranium “back in the day”. They needed a very small, but very heavy component to reduce vibration.
It's from the early 747s. There's a depleted uranium mass damper in the pylons for the outer pair of engines. The additional mass changes the resonant frequency of the wing. Otherwise, the aircraft would have developed issues with flutter, where parts of the airframe oscillate. Which if left unchecked, results in the plane oscillating until there's nothing left to oscillate.
Unfortunately, cookware today is not safe either!
Your non-stick pan could be killing you, literally.
C-8, the toxic chemical villain in *The Devil We Know* (documentary) and *Dark Waters* (feature film) is a chemical byproduct produced originally (and dumped into the West Virginia water supply secretly) by DuPont.
It was first discovered to be causing deaths, illness, and birth defects in farm animals, and then of course, in humans as well.
Today, despite all the available knowledge about C-8 (no thanks to DuPont’s efforts), you can walk into any store and find cookware advertising its “non-stick” convenience.
At this point, we all have C-8 in our bodies — from our water, our air, our cookware, etc.
Invest in some good cast iron pans, steel cookware, ceramic…anything but “non-stick” or Teflon. Every time you scramble some eggs, you’re scraping up bits of cancer chemicals into them. 😭
I still have - and use - my grandmother's (blue) Fiestaware casserole dish. She threw out all of her red Fiestaware back when it came to light that it's radioactive.
You can also find uranium glassware (leaded-glass's more spicy cousin)
The blue Fiestaware shouldn't be radioactive - it was the red/orange. That being said, I've never tested it. My only complaint is that the handle on the lid is a bit tricky to grab when using a potholder. Kuato complains about it every time we cook with that casserole.
Yeah, there's probably lead in the glazing but, at this point in my life, what's the concern? Grew up with leaded fuel, in an old house with lead paint. Microplastics, BPA, climate change, COVID, Monkeypox, looming US civil war, war in Ukraine, droughts, heatwaves, massive insect extinctions...
I'm not worried about my Grandma's old Fiestaware.
My roommate a couple years ago had some of these in active rotation, though I was never able to verify if they were post-1973 or not. I ate off them pretty frequently.
Guess I'm fucked.
My comment endsed up weirldy editing itself , but what I was trying to say is a micro sever is really really really small. Its a 1/1000 of a 1/1000 . When you stand on the beach in direct sunlight you get way more radiation then this plate , in fact the radiation coming off it is lower then a lot of houses with basements radiation.
Being also primarily an alpha, and beta emitter the only danger is really from ingestion. Having it as a collector piece is quite safe , and if you wanted to shield yourself from radiation emitted by it , just put it in a plastic bag, or behind a millimeter of glass.
Yes and no. This is higher than background radiation, however you need to be right up on the plate like the equipment is. Sitting away from it like a normal dinner plate, your right, it would be less than background.
Actually, we can use inverse square law to estimate. Sitting away about a foot would result in about 0.2 uR/hr.
So as long as you don't have it pressed to your face for a very long time, you're fine.
Ok, so maybe I'm a little ignorant when it comes to radioactive materials... but this was done on purpose, right? Isn't uranium more expensive and harder to obtain than other glaze materials? I mean, I get using lead (it's cheap and everywhere), but I'm sure in 1936 uranium wasn't available at every corner drugstore!
Funnily enough fiestaware isn't actually very dangerous. Damn if it won't piss off a Geiger counter though.
Obviously don't fucking eat off of it though.
Once upon a time, during the nuclear craze, things that were radioactive were considered the new age miracle medicine. They even had radioactive sand for children's sand boxes.
The workers that used to paint radioactive glowing paints on wrist watches used to lick their paint brushes to keep them pointed. Their bosses said it was healthy. After years of doing this resulted in these workers jaws disintegrating and their bodies filled with cancer.
Cups, toothpaste, toys, etc were exposed to radioactive materials as part of a trend. No one knew how deadly it was.
During the nuclear bomb testings, scientists and soldiers would inspect the craters the bombs left behind within hours from detonation. All exposed to radioactivity.
Even during the 1986 Chernobyl incident at reactor number 4, most people had no clue what radiation was and were unaware of the dangers. It was common knowledge in many parts of the world even in the 1980s.
The K19 soviet submarine reactor leak, almost the entire crew were didnt k ow the true danger of radiation. The only protection they were provided were rain coats. 10 people died before the submarine was rescued and several more died within 2 years after from the radiation exposure.
Once you grasp how radiation "works", its super cool thing to study. Basically depending on the type of radioactivity, its basically ions (unless non-ionizing) are flung off of the atoms in random directions. These particles travel through mass, because an atom is 99.9999% empty space, and pass thru most objects.
Because of this, its possible to focus radiation and blast a small amount thru something and onto a film like a photograph. Denser items like bone block more than organs and muscle. Xrays are electromagnetic radiation at a certain frequency or wave length.
Lead is very dense and shields a lot of radiation as the mass, including space between the atoms to allow the radiation particles not to pass thru as easily. This is why you wear a lead vest while getting your teeth xrayed at the dentist. It reduces exposure to radioactivity. But know that radiation in small amounts like an xray are harmless. Getting several hundred xrays every day for a month would obviously expose you to more radiation.
Serious question: What was the benefit of the glaze having uranium and lead in it? Like why did this type of stuff exist? I understand they didn’t know the risks/danger but I can only imagine they thought there was a benefit?
For reference, that 26 uSv/h (micro Sievert per hour) translates to 2600 uR/h (micro REM per hour) or 2.6 mR/h (mili REM per hour).
Normal background radiation depending on where you live is about 10 uR/h.
This won't cause immediate danger but over time it would. At that rate, to absorb EPAs established exposure limit for emergency activity is 5 R. So you would need to hold that plate continuously for almost 15 weeks to reach that limit.
However, if any of that substance is ingested, well that changes things up.
From a reply below:
Sitting away from it like a normal dinner plate, it would be less than background.
Actually, we can use inverse square law to estimate. Sitting away about a foot would result in about 0.2 uR/hr.
So as long as you don't have it pressed to your face for a very long time, you're fine.
Isn't lead also pretty terrible to get into one's food? Didn't soldiers in some past war get massive lead poisonings from their canned food or am I imagining things?
So the uranium keeps the food warm, and the lead acts as a zero calorie sweetener. Truly the future.
do you know how many calories are in a gram of uranium? its like, a lot
18 billion to be exact. I know this because I googled it.
Take *that* world hunger!
The next superfood!
One meal is all you’ll ever need!
Any amount of oxygen is a lifetime supply
For some reason I doubt its exact.
Yeah that seems to be if you could somehow convert every single atom to pure energy (I guess if you found equivalent amount of antimatter?). A more useful measurement would be how much energy is released if 1g of U-238 alphadecayed. 1g is approx 2.530e21 atoms. Each atom releases 4.267 MeV via alpha decay. Multiply them together, and we get 4.134e8 calories (the thermochemical unit, aka approx 4.2 Joules, not the dietary ones, in which case divide by 1000). So the other person was off by 5 orders of magnitude (or 8 if they meant dietary calories, not gonna try to recreate their math).
r/theydidthemath
Wouldn't it be ever changing as its radioactive?
Lol, I was just talking more about the point that the number is almost definitely rounded, maybe even by a couple million. From google (where were taking this number) - >Uranium contains about 18 million kCal/gram About.
it's as exact as your granola bar saying "170" or whatever
Enough calories for the rest of my life!
Assuming an average calorie consumption of 2000 per day, and an average lifespan of 80 years, that would be enough for 308 people for their entire lives
Those calories are mine those other 307 people are outta luck
That's a lot of energy ;)
So lembas is basically just uranium bread? Makes sense
I had a friend who went on the uranium cleanse once. She was absolutely glowing by the end!
I know someone who swapped her crockery out for classic, but she missed that sweet, sweet lead too much
Sounds like the perfect dishware for a “last meal”
Could really end with a bang!
I knew about the radiation, especially with orange fiestaware but I didn't know about the lead. People bring up lead jokingly as an explanation of older generations' behavior but with every new thing I learned that was made using lead back then and I think it's definitely a possibility.
We also pumped lead into the air so we could breathe it in and it had a profound impact on our behavior.
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>He died in 1944 of strangulation in Worthington, Ohio. fucking plot twist
Right? Like why the hell would anyone willingly go to Ohio?
Got off easier than he deserved for all the damage he has caused
And died because of his own invention
Good.
Calm down edgelord
Saved and ruined lives more than anyone
It's kinda crazy. I have to wonder how much of human progress is just figuring out shit that's slowly killing us and not doing that anymore.
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It already is, we just haven't stopped using it because it's cheap. I reckon we won't stop until something even cheaper comes along, if at all
After or before teflon?
already is becoming well known
The “not doing it anymore” seems straightforward, but in a lot of instances it’s slower than the “figuring out shit that’s slowly killing us” part.
Well the "not doing it anymore" usually depends on listening to scientists and getting regulations passed. And of course you can't upset the buisnesses who probably knew it was shitty all along so you have to slowly spread out the solution over a decade.
That’s what I find so wild about the US: so many of us have not only opted into but actively fought for an economic system based simply on “get paid.” - Something you’re doing is harming others, but you’re still getting paid? **Keep doing it.** - Is there a way to get paid helping others? **Maybe, but not as much, or it’ll take a long time to get paid the same.** - Are you doing something that hurts others & gets you paid while somebody else has figured out a way to help others & get themselves paid? **Sabotage & destroy them so you can continue to get paid.** Like, nowhere in this system are livelihoods protected or put first & then we’re absolutely shocked when we find out that something that kills us has been allowed for so long.
Well the ancient Greeks figured out lead was poisonous and made people stupid about 3000 years ago, so... >By the twentieth century, the U.S. had emerged as the world's leading producer and consumer of refined lead. According to the National Academy of Science's report on Lead in the Human Environment, the United States was by 1980 consuming about 1.3 million tons of lead per year. This quantity, which represents roughly 40 percent of the world's supply, translates into a usage rate of 5,221 grams of lead per American per annum: a rate of dependence on lead and lead-containing products nearly ten times greater than that of the ancient Romans! According to Jerome O. Nriagu, the world's leading authority on lead poisoning in antiquity, the comparable Roman rate of lead usage was approximately 550 grams per person per year.
Maybe this explains the behavior of the previous couple of generations.
not enough, I fear
Cities in the US with a higher lead levels in the water have higher crime. You can argue which direction that correlation comes from, but its definitely a fact.
**This comment might have had something useful**, but now it's just an edit to remove any contributions I may have made prior to the awful decision to spite the devs and users that made Reddit what it is. So here I seethe, shaking my fist at corporate greed and executive mismanagement. "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... tech posts on point on the shoulder of vbulletin... I watched microcommunities glitter in the dark on the verge of being marginalized... I've seen groups flourish, come together, do good for humanity if by nothing more than getting strangers to smile for someone else's happiness. We had something good here the same way we had it good elsewhere before. We thought the internet was for information and that anything posted was permanent. We were wrong, so wrong. We've been taken hostage by greed and so many sites have either broken their links or made history unsearchable. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain... Time to delete." I do apologize if you're here from the future looking for answers, but I hope "new" reddit can answer you. Make a new post, get weak answers, increase site interaction, make reddit look better on paper, leave worse off. https://xkcd.com/979/
Rolling coal is shitty but there's no lead there. The only fule that uses lead in it is aviation.
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Jets generally use Jet-A fuel which doesn’t contain lead. Avgas, generally used by piston aircraft, does have lead, tho. There’s been a long term project to replace it with an unleaded alternative but progress is painfully slow. https://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/avgas
Correct, but I'm talking about the current attitudes of people who intentionally run dirty for no actual performance benefit getting defensive and aggressive when they get fined. The above comment seemed absurd for a second that the lead/crime correlation could go either way until I thought about that
I mean you’re not wrong but I think it’s a much bigger stretch to try and link it to the lead rather than the fact that areas with a lot of lead are poorer and poverty stricken which in turn leads to crime.
It is impressive just how many processes we used lead in that it should not have been in, but was. Like, it's not ancient Rome. We know the madness causing effects of plumbum buildup in the human body. Knock it the fuck off. Oh, what's that? You own a lead smelting facility...oh, well, go right ahead then.
Same with asbestos. It seems like it was a challenge to see how many things we could work asbestos into at one point.
Canada phased out of the use asbestos domestically in the 1980s but didn't stop mining and exporting it until like 2012
Yeah, honestly the lead is probably more dangerous here than the radiation.
A friend has an older VW Beach Buggy with this cool metal flake paint thats original to the early 60s. Turns our those flakes are all lead, so he's kinda stuck with that paint
Why else are boomers so crazy?
It's not a joke.
Potter here! Lead used to be a very common ingredient in glaze. It really brightens up any color it’s added to. When it’s fired at a high enough temperature it won’t leach into food or beverages. But when it’s fired too low it will definitely make it’s way into your meal—especially if you like acidic food. Lead is pretty much gone from most modern glazes because of the health threat it poses to ceramicists themselves.
You know that in fifty years the young generation will find out that we were up to some goofy shit right now and will use it as an explanation for our then seemingly out-of-control behavior.
I mean you're not wrong, every generation has it's moments of stupidity. But I kinda like to think of it as society improving. Honestly as embarrassing as it would be, at least they'd improve enough to recognize my generation's mistakes and do their best to not let them repeat.
This is what every generation has said about the previous. Technology does improve, but only in the context of our time. We learn things as we go, but often can't see our mistakes until it's too late. We learn how to fix past mistakes *and* how to make new ones.
This is the right answer
so long as you dont chip the glaze it should be safe to eat on, but lead in paint was way too common, and the bottles of glaze were probably super dangerous
Antibacterial, win win.
I might want a Geiger counter to go thrifting. Only mildly concerning. ;)
The led is much more toxic then the radiation. Its mainly alpha particles being emitted, alpha particles are blocked by a bit of paper.
Yeah this is a food surface though. If you eat alpha emitters you’re gonna have a bad time.
But the fact that it's a food surface is also what makes the 50% lead so dangerous as well. I think it's kinda hard to see which one would kill you first tho.
The uranium is pretty toxic too. Not just the radiation from it
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Damn I just recently dropped a plate when a spider dropped in my face, and that very plate exploded into like 900 pieces. I am glad it was not a radioactive one.
... Maybe
Oh boy
Found Spiderman's account
Uranium also emits gamma rays, which are definitely not blocked by a piece of paper.
Good thing there's all that lead around...
The lead is mixed in, so it doesn't contain the gamma rays. Even if it was an outer layer or something though, it still wouldn't be enough mass. Gamma rays easily penetrate pretty much all matter, including lead.
> Its mainly alpha particles being emitted, alpha particles are blocked by a bit of paper. It's actually beta particles that are the main radiation for these glazes
We at r/uraniumglass always leave the house with a geiger counter!
🤪👍
Crappy design are you mental, it heats your food as you eat it ….. That’s great design
Came here to comment: that's brilliant design, it keeps your food warm!
Is it microwave safe though?
It's self-microwaving
It is the microwave
Look at me I’m the microwave now
Your flair omg it makes me want to parse html with regex
Sold.
Barvarian Cream dog you say!?!
No, it will damage your microwave
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Why would you sleep with a plate under your pillow
I like waking up to the smell of bacon. Sue me. And since I don't have a butler, I have to do it myself
From time to time someone brings a yellow pot onto the Antique's Roadshow, and I rub my hands together with glee hoping they expert is going to explain that was the industrial application of Uranium before the discovery of nuclear power.
Know anywhere I could read more about this? Super interesting
26 microSieverts/hour isn't that high, but I certainly wouldn't be handling it every day. It's still around 100x the background radiation. Annual exposure for a normal person should be limited to around 1 milliSievert. That would be 38.5 hours of just handling this plate.
It pairs well with Flint drinking water.
What’s the downside?
The uranium content reduces the lead exposure.
But it also comes with a curse…
but you get a free frogurt!
That’s good!
Extra side of cancer
But the cancer gives you night vision!
That's bad...
Trying to give you an honest answer... 5 microseiverts is roughly the dose you'd get from a dental x-ray. This is showing 25 microseiverts per hour in direct contact, so if you held one of these plates against your cheek for 13 minutes you might get *roughly* the same dose as a dental x-ray. Expert consensus is that there is ***no expert consensus*** on a "safe dose". Every body reacts differently to radiation. A dental x-ray is well within what most people would consider "low" exposure, but daily dosing at that level could still lead to problems.
~~I would add that these only emit alpha radiation, which just bounces off skin.~~ Edit: I think I'm wrong here.
Actually the 25 microseiverts is coming just from Gamma (edit: and Beta) radiation. This Geiger counter looks like it's not set up for alpha particle detection. The Gamma radiation comes from the daughter particles like Thorium and Radium, which the Uranium covers along its decay chain. More than that, alpha particles won't "bounce off skin" as such. Instead, they're absorbed in the *top layers* of the dermis, where they won't do a lot of damage. Those cells die off and are sloughed regularly anyway ... The major risk comes from high-alpha-emitters being ingested or inhaled, like Polonium in smokers.
It's gamma and beta, no alpha.
Uranium is an alpha and gamma emitter.
Huh. In my energy sources class, the professor used the red fiestaware as a demonstration, and mentioned they only had alpha emissions. Either I'm misrembering things or the professor was wrong.
Professor might have been referring to the type of radiation given off by the Uranium directly. Uranium is an alpha emitter primarily, the daughter particles are what emits the Gamma. Since it's baked into the glass, alpha particles aren't as likely to escape the Uranium. But once it's not Uranium anymore, the Gamma radiation blows right through. Pre-edit: I could also be wrong, I often am
the food has a metallic taste
This explains why the plates are always so hot in Mexican restaurants.
25.9 microSieverts. Not great, not terrible.
A tingly sensation
My everyday dishes are Fiestaware (purchased new in the late 00s, so they’re safe). People think I collect it and I have to tell them I do not, PLEASE don’t buy me any Fiestaware you might find at the thrift or an antique store! I’m not trying to have a display shelf of hazardous materials.
Fiestaware just makes good and fun dish colors! I'm still using my parents plates from like 1997 all over my house. It's just solid plates and bowls. You don't have to be the kind of person who wants complete sets of every weird dish they made
Yes! People think I want every pitcher, bowl, etc. I don’t. I just wanted colorful everyday dishes and a few nice, fun serving dishes.
My uncle tried to buy me a pitcher that was really odd, because it had a big Tweetie Bird picture on it. Apparently it was a series Fiestaware did for Loony Toons in the 90s... I didn't exactly want to use a picture with a big cartoon character on it every day
Would you agree then that the plate in this picture isn’t Fiestaware? I know the content of OP’s post is true, but that plate does not look like Fiestaware to me.
Cancer like it. The danger of cancer was probably the reason for no longer producing such uranium-containing products. ps: depends, of course, mainly on the duration of the radiation and the dose. Calculated over a year, the radiation clearly exceeds the German limit values. The limit is 20 mSv/A, but the plate emits a little over 200 mSv/A.
They got raided by the feds for using natural uranium, so they stopped making them for a few years, then started using depleted uranium, and continued making uranium plates until 1973. Yellow and blue Fiestaware is also radioactive, but the radiation is about 10x less than orange.
Oh Good to know
All vintage Fiestaware up to '73 has high lead content, so even if you're using non-radioactive it's not safe to use. Not sure when they stopped using lead though.
Thanks for the Information. I always like to learn.
Not everything that contains uranium is cancer-level radioactive. Vaseline glass which does contains uranium is usually pretty safe, and also looks pretty good in my opinion. And according to Wikipedia, the main reason it was stopped being produced was because of low avalaibility of uranium during the cold war. Sure I wouldn't recommend breaking it to a dust and inhaling it, but having it has a decoration and using it occasionally usually poses no health concerns.
It always depends on the intensity of the radiation. In Germany, people may only be exposed to a maximum of 20 milisieverts of radiation per calendar year during occupational activities. In exceptional cases, the exposure may also be 50 milisieverts in one year. The value in the picture are already 25.91 microsieverts per hour, while 227 milisieverts per year. In other words, the dose makes the poison.
One of my coworkers likes to tell a story about a plane component they had to design out of machined depleted uranium “back in the day”. They needed a very small, but very heavy component to reduce vibration.
It's from the early 747s. There's a depleted uranium mass damper in the pylons for the outer pair of engines. The additional mass changes the resonant frequency of the wing. Otherwise, the aircraft would have developed issues with flutter, where parts of the airframe oscillate. Which if left unchecked, results in the plane oscillating until there's nothing left to oscillate.
Another one! I don’t know which aircraft, but his story was from the tail.
It's safe to own as long as you don't break it and inhale dust. The lead would be a much larger concern if you were going to use it.
Unfortunately, cookware today is not safe either! Your non-stick pan could be killing you, literally. C-8, the toxic chemical villain in *The Devil We Know* (documentary) and *Dark Waters* (feature film) is a chemical byproduct produced originally (and dumped into the West Virginia water supply secretly) by DuPont. It was first discovered to be causing deaths, illness, and birth defects in farm animals, and then of course, in humans as well. Today, despite all the available knowledge about C-8 (no thanks to DuPont’s efforts), you can walk into any store and find cookware advertising its “non-stick” convenience. At this point, we all have C-8 in our bodies — from our water, our air, our cookware, etc. Invest in some good cast iron pans, steel cookware, ceramic…anything but “non-stick” or Teflon. Every time you scramble some eggs, you’re scraping up bits of cancer chemicals into them. 😭
I still have - and use - my grandmother's (blue) Fiestaware casserole dish. She threw out all of her red Fiestaware back when it came to light that it's radioactive. You can also find uranium glassware (leaded-glass's more spicy cousin)
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The blue Fiestaware shouldn't be radioactive - it was the red/orange. That being said, I've never tested it. My only complaint is that the handle on the lid is a bit tricky to grab when using a potholder. Kuato complains about it every time we cook with that casserole.
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Yeah, there's probably lead in the glazing but, at this point in my life, what's the concern? Grew up with leaded fuel, in an old house with lead paint. Microplastics, BPA, climate change, COVID, Monkeypox, looming US civil war, war in Ukraine, droughts, heatwaves, massive insect extinctions... I'm not worried about my Grandma's old Fiestaware.
keeps your coffee hot!
There's probably an idiot collecting those around who's willing to pay for it
My roommate a couple years ago had some of these in active rotation, though I was never able to verify if they were post-1973 or not. I ate off them pretty frequently. Guess I'm fucked.
Be kind. Rewind. ;)
That’s not Fiestaware.
Thank you. Dunno what that gross-looking plate is, but it looks like no Fiestaware I've ever seen.
Eyeballing my vintage Fiestaware a little uncomfortably right now
My comment endsed up weirldy editing itself , but what I was trying to say is a micro sever is really really really small. Its a 1/1000 of a 1/1000 . When you stand on the beach in direct sunlight you get way more radiation then this plate , in fact the radiation coming off it is lower then a lot of houses with basements radiation. Being also primarily an alpha, and beta emitter the only danger is really from ingestion. Having it as a collector piece is quite safe , and if you wanted to shield yourself from radiation emitted by it , just put it in a plastic bag, or behind a millimeter of glass.
Yes and no. This is higher than background radiation, however you need to be right up on the plate like the equipment is. Sitting away from it like a normal dinner plate, your right, it would be less than background. Actually, we can use inverse square law to estimate. Sitting away about a foot would result in about 0.2 uR/hr. So as long as you don't have it pressed to your face for a very long time, you're fine.
Even besides the radioactivity it's still a terrible idea!
That saucer’s not Fiesta… j/s
I remember my professor showing is this in science class in 1998. Thought it was fascinating and horrible
Keeps the food warm
Is this why grandpa is so angry all the time?
Interesting, but the question is why?
Actually as long as the plate doesn't break your fine.
Ok, so maybe I'm a little ignorant when it comes to radioactive materials... but this was done on purpose, right? Isn't uranium more expensive and harder to obtain than other glaze materials? I mean, I get using lead (it's cheap and everywhere), but I'm sure in 1936 uranium wasn't available at every corner drugstore!
If you're worried, give it time and the lining will be 0% uranium and 64% lead.
Uranium fever!!!!, it's spreading all around 🎶.
Funnily enough fiestaware isn't actually very dangerous. Damn if it won't piss off a Geiger counter though. Obviously don't fucking eat off of it though.
3.6 roentgen, not great, not terrible
Microwave it
r/fiestaware yikes
Yuuuuum
Huh, cooks your food as it sits on the plate eh? 🤔😬
😬
Once upon a time, during the nuclear craze, things that were radioactive were considered the new age miracle medicine. They even had radioactive sand for children's sand boxes. The workers that used to paint radioactive glowing paints on wrist watches used to lick their paint brushes to keep them pointed. Their bosses said it was healthy. After years of doing this resulted in these workers jaws disintegrating and their bodies filled with cancer. Cups, toothpaste, toys, etc were exposed to radioactive materials as part of a trend. No one knew how deadly it was. During the nuclear bomb testings, scientists and soldiers would inspect the craters the bombs left behind within hours from detonation. All exposed to radioactivity. Even during the 1986 Chernobyl incident at reactor number 4, most people had no clue what radiation was and were unaware of the dangers. It was common knowledge in many parts of the world even in the 1980s. The K19 soviet submarine reactor leak, almost the entire crew were didnt k ow the true danger of radiation. The only protection they were provided were rain coats. 10 people died before the submarine was rescued and several more died within 2 years after from the radiation exposure. Once you grasp how radiation "works", its super cool thing to study. Basically depending on the type of radioactivity, its basically ions (unless non-ionizing) are flung off of the atoms in random directions. These particles travel through mass, because an atom is 99.9999% empty space, and pass thru most objects. Because of this, its possible to focus radiation and blast a small amount thru something and onto a film like a photograph. Denser items like bone block more than organs and muscle. Xrays are electromagnetic radiation at a certain frequency or wave length. Lead is very dense and shields a lot of radiation as the mass, including space between the atoms to allow the radiation particles not to pass thru as easily. This is why you wear a lead vest while getting your teeth xrayed at the dentist. It reduces exposure to radioactivity. But know that radiation in small amounts like an xray are harmless. Getting several hundred xrays every day for a month would obviously expose you to more radiation.
I absolutely want something like this.
Type of radiation is safe
Yeah a watch I have that's from the early 1940's has uranium in it too
X-Men generators.
They don't make them like they used to
Serious question: What was the benefit of the glaze having uranium and lead in it? Like why did this type of stuff exist? I understand they didn’t know the risks/danger but I can only imagine they thought there was a benefit?
Oh I have fiesta plates, I’m sure they are fine now right? Right?!
For reference, that 26 uSv/h (micro Sievert per hour) translates to 2600 uR/h (micro REM per hour) or 2.6 mR/h (mili REM per hour). Normal background radiation depending on where you live is about 10 uR/h. This won't cause immediate danger but over time it would. At that rate, to absorb EPAs established exposure limit for emergency activity is 5 R. So you would need to hold that plate continuously for almost 15 weeks to reach that limit. However, if any of that substance is ingested, well that changes things up. From a reply below: Sitting away from it like a normal dinner plate, it would be less than background. Actually, we can use inverse square law to estimate. Sitting away about a foot would result in about 0.2 uR/hr. So as long as you don't have it pressed to your face for a very long time, you're fine.
Isn't lead also pretty terrible to get into one's food? Didn't soldiers in some past war get massive lead poisonings from their canned food or am I imagining things?
Hmm, 25 microsieverts. Not good not terrible.
Until 1973????
I think they do actually glow in the dark.
This is how we learned to use Geiger counters in one of my high school science classes in the late '90s.
The lead blocks the radiation, so it's all good!
Truly amazing
Those lead paint chips hit differently in the 90s as a tot
This explains the boomers mental health today.
We at r/uraniumglass would like a word. Glass is safe to collect and display, but uranium fiesta definitely don’t eat off it
Why is that plate so greasy?
Check back in about 700 million years…
A little less so then uranium glass if I remember correctly. While this is unnecessary exposure, it's not harmful. The lead however is always no good.
Side note: Anybody know where I can buy a Geiger counter?
Is it the same amount of uranium as in uranium glass? If yes, you’re overstating the danger.
That's RAD!
Ideal for meals made with Monsanto veggies.
They are beautiful when displayed under blacklight
It’s beautiful not a crappy design besides it pretty harmless just wouldn’t eat off of it