Nuke'em till they glow

[Svartalf]

Well, I am just being vexed by that expression.
Where does the misconception that being irradiated/made radioactive causes you to display fluorescent/phosphorescent properties come from?
How did it spread as that saying?

and I've been nuking things in my oven for over a decade, and never found anything glowing as I opened the door.

[Pappa]

Probably from b-movies.

[Seth]

Well, I am just being vexed by that expression.
Where does the misconception that being irradiated/made radioactive causes you to display fluorescent/phosphorescent properties come from?
How did it spread as that saying?

and I've been nuking things in my oven for over a decade, and never found anything glowing as I opened the door.

See Cherenkov radiation.

[Tyrannical]

Glow in the dark clocks used to be painted with I believe radium. So one of the early uses of radioactive elements was indeed to glow in the dark.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Glow in the dark clocks used to be painted with I believe radium. So one of the early uses of radioactive elements was indeed to glow in the dark.

I read a scifi story about bad guys assembling a nuke in New York. The core had been smuggled in by using uranium instead of radium on imported watches. We tweaked to the danger when it was noticed that none of the watches were being sold. Evidently the writer wanted us to believe that the bad guys were going to scrape the glowing stuff off 100,000 watch dials and put the dust together for the bomb.


Strangely, I found it less than believable.

[Tyrannical]

Glow in the dark clocks used to be painted with I believe radium. So one of the early uses of radioactive elements was indeed to glow in the dark.

I read a scifi story about bad guys assembling a nuke in New York. The core had been smuggled in by using uranium instead of radium on imported watches. We tweaked to the danger when it was noticed that none of the watches were being sold. Evidently the writer wanted us to believe that the bad guys were going to scrape the glowing stuff off 100,000 watch dials and put the dust together for the bomb.


Strangely, I found it less than believable.

If you said bottles of radioactive paint for clocks it'd be almost believable, though detectable.

Some HS kid a number of years ago in the US had a Geiger counter in his car, and was using it to detect antique shops that had old radioactive stock like clocks. He scored a small container of the paint stored in an old clock. Driving buy with a Geiger counter alerted him to it. He also eventually turned his backyard into a radiation hazard zone in part due to his home made neutron gun.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Glow in the dark clocks used to be painted with I believe radium. So one of the early uses of radioactive elements was indeed to glow in the dark.

I read a scifi story about bad guys assembling a nuke in New York. The core had been smuggled in by using uranium instead of radium on imported watches. We tweaked to the danger when it was noticed that none of the watches were being sold. Evidently the writer wanted us to believe that the bad guys were going to scrape the glowing stuff off 100,000 watch dials and put the dust together for the bomb.


Strangely, I found it less than believable.

If you said bottles of radioactive paint for clocks it'd be almost believable, though detectable.

Some HS kid a number of years ago in the US had a Geiger counter in his car, and was using it to detect antique shops that had old radioactive stock like clocks. He scored a small container of the paint stored in an old clock. Driving buy with a Geiger counter alerted him to it. He also eventually turned his backyard into a radiation hazard zone in part due to his home made neutron gun.

This was a McCarthy-era story and the point was that the Commies would go to any lengths to strike at the pure-as-driven-snow United States.