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  1. Naked Science Forum
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  4. can a neutron gun be made?
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can a neutron gun be made?

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Offline Dege (OP)

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can a neutron gun be made?
« Reply #60 on: 04/02/2009 05:10:24 »
ha ha yeah but that is why lead was invented lol i wouldn't be reckless with high radiation substances. lol
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Offline Chemistry4me

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can a neutron gun be made?
« Reply #61 on: 04/02/2009 05:12:52 »
Lead was not invented dude.

--------

In the sense of being synthetically created.
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Offline Dege (OP)

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can a neutron gun be made?
« Reply #62 on: 04/02/2009 12:18:24 »
you know what I mean lol
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Online Bored chemist

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can a neutron gun be made?
« Reply #63 on: 04/02/2009 19:58:15 »
OK,I wasn't kidding when I said that you would be hard pressed to prove that this thing generates neutrons.
Since geiger conters ignore them (to a pretty good aproximation) that's not an option. The fact that the guy giving "advice" here thinks that a geiger would work is worrying.

Americium is not nice stuff to play with.
Don't.
On a good day the yield for the alpha proton reaction in beryllium is about 1 in a million. With Aluminum it's a whole lot worse. Most of the alpha particles won't even get to the foil.
A typical smoke detector only has something like a microcurie of activity in it. That means about 37000 alpha particles a second.
Only half of them will head towards the foil so you are down to about 20000 alphas a second. Most of those will not actually be pointing straight at the foil so they will just plough into the lead walls of the tube and stop. Without knowing the exact geometry of the system it's hard to say how much this will reduce the rate of production but it's probaly something like a hundred fold or more.
A whole lot more of the alphas will be lost by interaction with the air unless you evacuate the tube. If the path in air is more than about an inch all the aplhas will be lost.
So, at best you have something like 200 alpha particles a second hitting the foil. It's not made of Be but, if it were then about 1 alpha in a million would produce a neutron. With 200 alphas a second you should get a neutron about every hour and a half.

Just how exciting does this project look now?

Wouldn't it have been better to do that arithmetic before you got the smoke detectors?

« Last Edit: 04/02/2009 20:00:16 by Bored chemist »
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Offline Dege (OP)

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can a neutron gun be made?
« Reply #64 on: 04/02/2009 21:38:43 »
yes I see where you are coming from. I really do. but the more americium you have like say I have 3 smoke detectors and get all of the americium out and put them in the chamber then shouldn't that triple my alpha and neutron out put?
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Offline Chemistry4me

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can a neutron gun be made?
« Reply #65 on: 04/02/2009 22:00:10 »
Well, you heard what the expert had to say.
Whooops...[:I], ummm... yeah, sorry about the Geiger counter wrong information [:I]
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Offline Dege (OP)

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can a neutron gun be made?
« Reply #66 on: 04/02/2009 22:05:32 »
ha ha it's ok chem. dont worry bout it.lol but yeah if i triple that out put then i should have more neutrons, right?
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Offline Chemistry4me

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can a neutron gun be made?
« Reply #67 on: 04/02/2009 22:10:49 »
It'll increase but I'm not sure about tripling.
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Offline Dege (OP)

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can a neutron gun be made?
« Reply #68 on: 05/02/2009 03:28:09 »
OK thanks allot I will up date you tomarrow
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Offline Chemistry4me

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can a neutron gun be made?
« Reply #69 on: 05/02/2009 04:32:41 »
Don't thank me man, I haven't done anything...
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Offline Dege (OP)

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can a neutron gun be made?
« Reply #70 on: 07/02/2009 05:31:35 »
yeah you have you and boredchemist gave me some good advice. lol
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Offline Chemistry4me

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can a neutron gun be made?
« Reply #71 on: 07/02/2009 05:37:03 »
Have you made it?
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Offline frisbey

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can a neutron gun be made?
« Reply #72 on: 12/02/2009 21:44:11 »
what would happen if you put two nuetrons into an atom[?]

Also, Dege, what are you planning on doing with the nuetron gun?

« Last Edit: 12/02/2009 21:47:52 by frisbey »
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Offline Chemistry4me

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can a neutron gun be made?
« Reply #73 on: 12/02/2009 23:46:46 »
Quote from: frisbey on 12/02/2009 21:44:11
what would happen if you put two nuetrons into an atom[?]
You'll most likely get a different isotope. e.g Am-243 turns into Am-245 [:)]
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Offline frisbey

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can a neutron gun be made?
« Reply #74 on: 13/02/2009 03:41:04 »
would it be possible to draw the proton of an atom into the path of the electron?
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Offline Chemistry4me

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can a neutron gun be made?
« Reply #75 on: 13/02/2009 04:03:09 »
Quote
The 6.3 kilometers long storage ring facility HERA is used to accelerate protons and electrons.

http://zms.desy.de/e428/e548/e550/e6944/e76/index_eng.html
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Offline Chemistry4me

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can a neutron gun be made?
« Reply #76 on: 13/02/2009 04:04:44 »


The picture shows an event observed in the H1 detector when a proton and an electron collide. Key informations can be obtained from the track directions and particle energies.

http://zms.desy.de/e428/e548/e550/e6944/e76/index_eng.html
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Offline Chemistry4me

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can a neutron gun be made?
« Reply #77 on: 13/02/2009 04:06:15 »
Why do you want to know?  [:)][:)]
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Offline Dege (OP)

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can a neutron gun be made?
« Reply #78 on: 13/02/2009 22:26:52 »
OK guys its done now all that's left is to prove the neutron is being produced
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Offline Chemistry4me

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can a neutron gun be made?
« Reply #79 on: 13/02/2009 22:30:05 »
How long did it take? 5 days? I thought you'd gone and done something stupid!
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