We went to the Nuclear Science and History Museum which opened in its new location near our house this weekend. It’s pretty large now, with a lot of exhibits. One annoying thing was a loud water electrolysis exhibit that separated hydrogen from water and used it to fire a ping pong ball high into the air. It was like a gunshot going off every few minutes. Hopefully, they’ll move that one outside. It looks like they’ve still got to assemble some large stuff in the back lot. Lots of unlabeled airplane and rocket parts sitting out there. Anyway, I learned that people have been weird about radiation. They’ve been scared where they don’t need to be and casual where they should have been scared. The nuke stuff was pretty insane. In the 60s, there was even a small nuke that could be carried by 3 soldiers and launched 1000 feet away.
Sounds like a really bad idea. In 1966, an air collision between US planes in Spain caused the accidental dropping of 4 nukes. There was no nuclear explosion, but one of them broke up and dumped some plutonium. There was an x-ray machine just to make sure your shoes fit you in the shoe store in the 30s and 40s. Yikes. All kinds of quack radiation treatments involving radium. But then the museum had to have large exhibits just to point out that nuclear power is pretty safe if done correctly, since people in the US are deathly afraid of that.