NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Glowing Sea Surface
From: George Huxtable
Date: 2003 Nov 10, 18:52 +0000
From: George Huxtable
Date: 2003 Nov 10, 18:52 +0000
Jared Sherman said- From physics and chemistry you can learn that there is some tritium in all water, and tritium does glow, but if you could never see that emission in normal seawater. Response from George- I wonder if Jared is thinking of Deuterium, the isotope of hydrogen that is bonded into heavy water, which makes up a small part of all water. Tritium, another isotope of Hydrogen, is unstable, decaying with a half-life of about 12 years, which is one reason why those Hydrogen bombs need to be "refurbished" at regular intervals. Small quantities of Tritium result from cosmic ray bombardment, but because of this decay it does not accumulate to any extent. Any Tritium content in the world's oceans would only be present, in minute quantities, as a result of nuclear processing or testing over recent years. It's hard to imagine such Tritium content emitting enough light energy to cause a visible glow, under any circumstances. Perhaps Jared can provide some references, rather than just "from physics and chemistry". Nor does Tritium, on its own, glow. Yes, many self-luminous light-sources use Tritium to supply their energy, but the low-energy beta-particles that Tritium emits generate light by ending up in a fluorescent screen, such as Zinc Sulphide. There's no glow from the Tritium gas itself, as far as I know. I suggest, then, that Jared has raised a false trail. George. ================================================================ contact George Huxtable by email at george@huxtable.u-net.com, by phone at 01865 820222 (from outside UK, +44 1865 820222), or by mail at 1 Sandy Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK. ================================================================