Radiation.... and the Future!

T

Tannhauser

Venerable Relic of the Wastes
Orderite
This is a question I've seen posed several times, never with a satisfactory answer. I was wondering what the wonderful people at NMA would make of it. It also ties into Fallout, dealing with the future and radiation, in case you didn't read the title.

If we bury radioactive waste (please no discussions on that fact, that's not the question) how will we warn people thousands of years from now that the area is dangerous? We have the radioactivity symbol, but there little doubt that it will lose it's meaning over time. The EPA regulates nuclear waste sites be safe for 10,000 years, what symbol will tell the observer "Danger!" regardless of background?

Skulls are a common suggestion, but it's cultural influence that symbolize skulls with danger.

So what symbol would universally warn the observer of danger? If there is one.
 
Kotario said:
This is a question I've seen posed several times, never with a satisfactory answer. I was wondering what the wonderful people at NMA would make of it. It also ties into Fallout, dealing with the future and radiation, in case you didn't read the title.

If we bury radioactive waste (please no discussions on that fact, that's not the question) how will we warn people thousands of years from now that the area is dangerous? We have the radioactivity symbol, but there little doubt that it will lose it's meaning over time. The EPA regulates nuclear waste sites be safe for 10,000 years, what symbol will tell the observer "Danger!" regardless of background?

Skulls are a common suggestion, but it's cultural influence that symbolize skulls with danger.

So what symbol would universally warn the observer of danger? If there is one.
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I would think that it would be fairly self-evident even without warning signs. The waste should be buried in areas that are not accessible without sophisticated equipment, so any one reaching the area must have some level of technological expertise. The containers will also scream "man-made" raising enough questions that they wont merrily crack into them,... hopefully. And considering the dont know what's inside they'll monitor them and notice the significant amount of heat present aswell as the unusual amounts of high-level radiation.

I would also think that in 10,000 years time skull and crossbones and possibly radioactive signs will still be recognised even if only by historians, who would be called in the event of an artifact being uncovered with those signs present.

If in doubt stick the signs on, paint it red, place the container in a tomb, seal the tomb sturdily afterwards inscribe it with death, skeletons, skulls, etc and a passage of "beware all ye who enter: unsafe radiation levels inside", and for good measure scatter a few corpses around the container.

People may start to get the point.
 
Wonderful question...one I cannot really think of an answer for...

I suppose death is bad in any culture. You could have a fake corpse to show death...or a skull. I think that would do...or a mural of Hell.

Interested,
The Vault Dweller
 
Actually I just had another thought on it.

inscribe the container all around with a variety of pictures containing information on what is inside and what it does.

A periodic table with models of certain atoms, and a list of the elements inside the container possibly with models again. Maybe throw in some of the nuclear equations aswell to reinforce the point.

Instantly recognisable.
 
The people thousands of years from now will probably have more sophisticated technology (unless there's a nuclear war, genetic degradation, bla bla bla) hence know exactly where all these areas are, and hate us for making them.
 
I say bury the waste deep inside of mountains in lead shielded "vaults" that are sealed PERMENANTLY so we wouldent have to worry about people "finding their way inside".
 
store it just a litle longer untill they develope beter rockets, then fire them straight at the sun...quite expensive though...
 
Actually the rocket would be destroyed by the heat long before it hit the sun, then we would have chunks of radioactive debrees floating around in space and we dont want that now do we :eyebrow:
 
What have people done with ancient tombs and the like though? Even when they have curses, threats of death, and the like? We explore them.

Even building that the ancients thought were sealed 'permanently' we explore. How would you even seal something permanently anyway? With dedication, people would be able to break through. Even without advanced technology, people can be quite ingenious at times.

Just because our decedents have more sophisticated technology doesn't mean they will have all our information. The medium information is stored on degrades, only by constant copying to more modern media is it preserved. All it takes is one break in the cycle and that information is lost. Not to mention the problems in translation tht will arise in thousands of years. I doubt our decedents will have all that accurate information about us (given enough time).

Nuclear equations would be meaningless to someone with a different mathematical system, as would the periodic table to someone with a different way of cataloging elements.

Phil, you launch the material into a trajectory that will drag it into the sun by gravity alone.
 
Kotario said:
Nuclear equations would be meaningless to someone with a different mathematical system, as would the periodic table to someone with a different way of cataloging elements.
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The point would be that even if the periodic table is not recognised (likely) a drawing of an atom probably will, at which point it quite clearly draws into the periodic table. they then look at the numbers, hmm proton and mass... interesting. Oh and here seems to be a list, it refers back to the table, wierd symbols but at least we have mass and proton numbers to go on, oh dear strontium-90, rob stop hacking at it with that crowbar and go get the boss. kinda thing. You'd do it so that it all interlinks and that it is quite blatentenly trying to tell you somthing scientific rather than some supersticious curse. You dont need to understand the table or equations, you just need to look at a drawing and go "yep that's [insert element here]" and the rest follows. The only problem would be if they had no idea of the inside of an atom, and even then it maybe put under study because they feel it can teach them things.

Were I to sit you down with a radically different table with different names but supplied you with the simple standard drawings of hydrogen helium and sodium then chances are you could quite quickly decipher it and fill in the other elements from the periodic table.

If the egyptian pyramids had been covered in blatently scientific and mathematical equations and information so that it could not be bored into without damaging the script then it would have been put under observation first.

It's not perfect, but it screams "scientific fact here, sealed for a scientific reason, you might wanna look a bit closer at the drawings there mate"

I understand that it would be difficult and not perfect, but for long term buried storage it's not too bad compared to "if you open this a bloke will rise from the grave and eat your eyeballs" because people wont believe you.
 
And what pray tell does an atom look like? Do you mean the Bohr model? Because that's dreadfully inaccurate, but how would you create a drawing of an electron probability cloud (especially the five d-orbitals, that would be great fun)? How would you differentiate (universally) between a proton and neutron? This is all assuming they would even have would have a model of the atom remotely close to the one we hold.

You are also assuming that the people who find the site would be real archeologists, not anyone a little less disciplined.

The gist of it is that I don't really see this is an acceptable answer, to someone 10,000 years in the future, it may be nothing more than nonsense.
 
Easy:

Lots of skulls, lots of radiation warning signs (you all know what they look like), drawings of the elements and listing of the elements and a tightly sealed bunker/storage area so anyone who wants in has to go past and notice all the warning signs.
 
Phil the Nuke-Cola Dude said:
Actually the rocket would be destroyed by the heat long before it hit the sun, then we would have chunks of radioactive debrees floating around in space and we dont want that now do we :eyebrow:
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yeah, the rocket would be destroyed, it would burn like hell, but so would the waste(I think), and as Kotario said, it would be dragged to za varm zun!
 
For long term storage of radioactive waste the only viable solution is to alter its state, recycling it.

Storage is not an option, because the earth's surface is always changing, on the eon timescale. Eventually it would be exposed to the atmosphere, long before the hallife of many elements. Launching it into space would be risky for many reasons, first and foremost is the very real risk of poisoning the entire planet with fallout if the rocket should happen to explode in the stratosphere. Keeping it spread about the world in spent fuel casks invites exploitation by terrorists, the wind and water.

The only good way to deal with waste is to either not produce it in the first place or recycle it. Breeder reactors were a concept explored by both the US and Soviet Union through the 1980s. These devices are able to turn radioactive by-products into useful fuel sources and non-radioactive forms. Exactly how eludes my limited information base, but I assume it involved some combination of particle accelerator and reactor design. Unfortunately the US stopped this line of inquiry (AFAIK) after Greenpeace and others got wind of it. And the Soviet experiments died with the Union.

Best short term solution is the storage facility being built it Nevada or New Mexico. Yes, its on a fault line, but it provides a better solution than any others today.
 
Murdoch said:
For long term storage of radioactive waste the only viable solution is to alter its state, recycling it.
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yeah! turn it into depleted uranium bullets and shells!

fun guaranteed on the long run for the enemies and your soldiers as well!

...

:roll:

PS: this was not aimed at you Murdy, but at all the halfassed nations who use it
 
Kotario said:
And what pray tell does an atom look like? Do you mean the Bohr model? Because that's dreadfully inaccurate, but how would you create a drawing of an electron probability cloud (especially the five d-orbitals, that would be great fun)? How would you differentiate (universally) between a proton and neutron? This is all assuming they would even have would have a model of the atom remotely close to the one we hold.

You are also assuming that the people who find the site would be real archeologists, not anyone a little less disciplined.
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More the model found in text books for twelve year olds. no orbital subshells, nothing even remotely complicated or even needs to be that accurate just so that most people, even children will say "thats a (simple drawing of an atom". Unless we have the "idea" of neutrons protons and electrons really wrong* then it should stand the rest of time.

Chances are the people who find it would be ones who work for a mining company, in which case upon finding things other than natural "rock" supervisors would be alerted and it would trickle upwards or archeologists. Other poeple who may stumble across it probably wont have the equipment to break into it.

Kotario said:
The gist of it is that I don't really see this is an acceptable answer, to someone 10,000 years in the future, it may be nothing more than nonsense.
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That is quite true. The idea is that it's simply better than any complicated writings or symbols because it is a sort of "universal constant". You're quite right, I just feel it has a chances because the chances of completely bypassing a simple model of the atom is less likely than forgetting what certain symbols mean.


I agree wth the posts saying that recycling or removing the hazard is the way to go. I seem to remember there was once the idea of using really deep mines to remove it with subduction, sending it straight back to the mantle.
 
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