A particularly dangerous radium quack cure from 1920

[@anullhandle]

"Bringing the light inside the body" Thanks for the chuckle. There's been a lot of gems but that's up there for the biggest wtf moment.

[@Carl_Willis]

WTF indeed! Despite a well-known and dangerous history, I'm convinced it would not be hard to sell radioactive quack medicines to Americans today.

[@aestoev]

so if someone fills the water trap of this device with bleach we will gwt "Covinator-nator 2000" the best way to deal with Covid-19 - Disinfectant and bringing the Light inside of the body :-)

[@Carl_Willis]

@@aestoev Sure enough!

[@chester8420]

@@Carl_Williswouldn't surprise me! I live in rural South Georgia. I have a bunch of friends that drink Ivermectin "pour on" cattle dewormer because they think it prevents covid. I have cows, and it was hard to find in stores for a while cause people were using it all up!!!

[@derealized797]

@@chester8420 maybe you should do a little actual research on that "horse dewormer". You're not exactly making your friends look bad.

[@teresashinkansen9402]

Seeing the solarization of the bottle that contained the Radium tells a lot about how much activity it has, that's crazy haha.

[@drezster]

KZbin algorithm doesn't seem like my "taste" in videos nor your channel content. Took me ages to find this channel. Glad that I did. Awesome content.

[@cymbala6208]

My impression: YT generally doesn't "like" people who are interested in nuclear engineering or radioactivity. I've also been confronted with the fact that they don't suggest such videos until I actively search for them (though the al*rithm should know which topics interest me).

[@MarkRose1337]

It always astonishes me when people keep radium items indoors. I recently moved into a new place with 300-500 Bq/m³ radon that I'll need to get addressed soon.

[@ajacks1349]

I agree...& they'd have to be stupid. There's a big following for collecting Uranium glasses & some people have hundreds or thousands of pieces in their collections. Wonder how much RADON gas is emitted over time from the natural Uranium containing pieces? DU containing pieces should only contain minute trace quantities of Radium at worst, so shouldn't be a problem for a long long long time.

[@ThinkingBetter]

Very few people have a Geiger counter and are oblivious to the dangers of radiation. On my way to work on a major freeway I’ve discovered a particular place where my Geiger counter beeps for a short time and I’ve now noticed it consistently as 2-3 times normal background radiation. I plan to drive there just to find the source over the weekend. It’s just 40 minutes away but I’ve concluded it’s not random as it is the only place I see such jump.

[@MarkRose1337]

@@ThinkingBetter I've encountered a couple places like that but was unable to locate the source. I suspect it was roadway material from a local quarry as there were uranium and thorium deposits in the area. A Geiger counter won't help with radon though unless it can detect alpha and the levels are very high, like on the order of 100,000 Bq/m³.

[@ThinkingBetter]

@@MarkRose1337 Yes actually I have an air quality monitor in my house from Airthings that monitor radon and other parameters of the air. Radon is always low but some times I have peaks of other things in the air due to cooking or even CO2 if I close the door to the bedroom in the night. That Airthings product is great for continuous monitoring and is Wifi connected.

[@ThinkingBetter]

@@MarkRose1337 Yes, perhaps it’s something in the road. But keep in mind I’m sitting in my car driving about 60 mph when my Geiger counter beeps and the peak is just a few seconds ALWAYS…I drive a lot of miles and never see such spikes anywhere else. Problem is that it is a busy freeway and I can’t just stop there.

[@weirdmeisterinc]

good explanation with the purple glas colour

[@simonstergaard]

Just found you channel, and as a collector of radioactive minerals its freaking amazing !

[@Carl_Willis]

Welcome!

[@toyplasticcello]

Please tell us all what stuff you got?

[@rocbolt]

Ahh the screams of all your meters at the end, hehe

[@Carl_Willis]

Music to my ears!

[@jamesluck2969]

I dont own enough batteries if I wanted to have all of mine scream

[@rwillisnc]

Excellent video Carl. You do such a great job explaining the science as well as the historical and modern day appeal of such quackery! Well done!

[@Carl_Willis]

Thanks! Great to see you on KZbin! Love you!!

[@jamesluck2969]

Good to see you back at the videos Carl. Though for a second you left KZbin. That's a heck of a source, rare one at that. Makes me jealous, yet I wont have a location to store one proper.

[@updowne-1224]

Always love to see new videos from you. Nuclear science is so interesting.

[@ClagwellsGarage]

Another excellent video Carl! Thanks for posting

[@Carl_Willis]

Thanks! Keep up the fine work yourself. Brings back memories from my fusor days!

[@PedroHenrique-xm1yt]

GREAT video as always, really liked it, and that source is indeed pretty spicy. Do you think someday you could make a really crude video showing some measurements of your sources? Like the am/be source, radium paint stuff and all that? It would be REALLY interesting to see!!

[@radiumquetzal8000]

Those would totally be amazing to see. Probably the biggest collection of them all with items never seen before.

[@tesla242]

When I saw the purple glass damage, that´s the wow moment! I guess the entire box it´s quite contaminated right? I was hoping a for a check with the pancake on the video.

[@Matthew.Morycinski]

Not necessarily. All radium daughters are short-lived, so it all decays into stable Pb 206 in a very short time. If there is much contamination, it is from radium itself.

[@christopherleubner6633]

Purple color centers in a bottle that far from the source is quite scary. That is mighty mighty hot. Wonder how many milicuries are in that!

[@inductivelycoupledplasma6207]

About 100uCi of Ra and nearly 1mCi including progeny

[@hawkeye454]

Very interesting antique! Carl, what is the "spiciest"/most radioactive thing you've been around outside of a lab setting? Is this more active per se than the stringer tubes at Chernobyl?

[@filipmjankowski]

Awsome find! I would love to see more content from you!

[@mothman7430]

watching you pick up the box after having the geiger counter not even click, but SCREAM at it is something you'd never see me do lol

[@OG-Capo---]

I looked into radithor and seen the effects it did on people back in the day ! Crazy !

[@kesslerfox]

R.I.P. this guy’s Nuts the entire length of exposure

[@Qwerty1235945]

Superb video Carl. Fascinating history there.

[@johnaldridge6770]

I think the bladder is the air source. I think it's a hand pump. Like from a blood pressure cuff pump.

[@PeterSCampbell]

I'm back in 2025 to say this is still the hardest edit any RTS has received. It's still fire 🔥

[@chemistryscuriosities]

What a score! I have a very common Revigator. My Revigator doesn’t come close to the amount of gamma coming from that anti-static source in your walkie record-all or the radon infusing apparatus.

[@WheelerScientific]

Wow, that's hot, still waiting for the video where you get around to building yourself a reactor, I'm hoping that what the empty space you have next to your other building is, though the NRC gets a bit upset about those things. Just wondering, is that one of the highest activity items you have? I bet you have some amazing items around your Lab. Keep up the good work!

[@mikebandana70]

Weird stuff. It's crazy that people used it as medicine back then. I would never inhale it.

[@Yrouel86]

Pretty cool (well hot actually) artifact you got there hopefully whoever had it before you didn't keep it too close... I'm baffled by the fact that despite the enormous fear around nuclear stuff and radiation radioactive quackery managed to survive to this day but oh well at least I got a couple of nice samples for my collection (one of those pendants and a wand/pen). Perhaps we should start calling nuclear power plants "quantum scalar energy negative ions harvesting plant" to sell them to the public?

[@duracell1battery]

Nowadays people are worried about tritium contamination in water, meanwhile a century ago people were purposely contaminating their drinking water with radon 😂

[@cometboy1]

Lovely. The purple snagged my interest immediately. I could probably spend a few hours answering this myself, but do you happen to know how this compares to a typical radium clock (not watch) dial ie uC? I'm guessing ~100X. Cheers.

[@Carl_Willis]

Watches are usually ~0.1 microcurie, but it definitely varies over a range.

[@inductivelycoupledplasma6207]

As Carl said, a watch is ~~0.1uCi. A clock typically won't be much more than 1uCi. This is ~100uCi, so yes, about 100x

[@ThinkingBetter]

These things stored under a bed or in a cabinet next to a bed would be really dangerous.

[@Carl_Willis]

Worst-case scenario would be to use it as originally intended!

[@ThinkingBetter]

@@Carl_WillisWorse is to start cracking it open carelessly indoor and not wash your hands then go to sleep thinking that this is just some harmless stuff. As a kid I used to disassemble old electronics in my room, which has some dangers, but luckily I never got my hands on one of these.

[@coolcat_vlogs69]

Hi Carl, just wanted to say that I absolutely love your videos! They're always new and original, and I'm glad to see you posting again! I was wondering if you would consider either doing some videos, or a livetsream, running through some of the important mathematics relating to nuclear physics, as I know that is definitely an area I'm lacking in? A really great antique btw! What sort of dose rate would your readings roughly translate into? Am I right in thinking that uSv is roughly 10x the mR reading? 🤔 Hope to see more of your videos soon! 🤗☢

[@Carl_Willis]

I tend to focus on pretty specific topics, and the math that is applied to nuclear physics spans such a wide variety of topics that it would be hard to focus appropriately. The conversion of an exposure measurement (in roentgens) to an ambient dose equivalent (in Sieverts) is in principle not a simple power of ten since these are different quantities with different dimensions (charge in air versus risk to human beings). But yes, you are looking at about a factor of 10 here to get uSv from mR.

[@coolcat_vlogs69]

@@Carl_Willis Thank you for your reply! Yes I can totally understand that - I suppose the main mathematical areas I was suggesting would be about conversion between units, decay equations, equations involving barn measurement, and the criticality of different materials, showing mathematically how neutron interactions with different moderators and fuels can create sustainable fission.

[@jonr42]

Awesome find, Carl.

[@cyrillium1960]

Good video, the radium is very radioactive even with 120 micrograms of radium 226!. I would have liked to know, since you are a nuclear engineer, how many sieverts are produced by 1 gram of radium 226?

[@inductivelycoupledplasma6207]

One curie (1g Ra, 37GBq) would be 825mR/h of gamma at 1m distance

[@cyrillium1960]

Thanks

[@karvast5726]

This is the most radioactive antique i ever seen,this thing is WILD.nothing like baby radium clocks

[@Elias0368]

Fascinating video!

[@johnwebb4869]

Go Carl go! Who here wants to see more Carl videos! Let's let him know!

[@JustinAlexanderBell]

Wow that thing is lit up, hope nobody was storing it in a living space.

[@dmytrostepanyuk7808]

Thank you

[@jepolch]

How much water would you have to ingest before you experienced radiation sickness?

[@Carl_Willis]

That wouldn't be the health concern of issue here. It would be cancer. Acute radiation sickness requires astronomical doses delivered quickly! Internal dosimetry of radon daughters isn't something I know a whole lot about, but a whole-body committed dose per volume water consumed could presumably be generated from the NRC's ALIs for the various radon daughters.

[@randyhavener1851]

Ho-lee Cow "Spicy" indeed! Thanks for sharing Carl!!!

[@Live.Vibe.Lasers]

Carl Willis..I am interested in the history of the Standard Chemical Co, the Vanadium building, and the Canonsburg radium plant in Pittsburgh, PA that at one time made half of the worlds radium. There is a large radioactive impoundment in Canonsburg said to contain 100 Curies (100 grams) of radium. I'm not sure if it works this way but could you tell me if that was a point source, the dose one would receive in R/hr?

[@Carl_Willis]

There's a formula shown on screen in the video that contains the exposure rate constant for radium (in equilibrium with daughters). You would follow the same math, but put in 100 Ci as the activity and put in a distance of choice, and the equation will tell you your exposure rate at that distance. 100 Ci is an awful lot. Of course, in a tailings impoundment, it's pretty dilute and distributed and there is a lot of shielding around it from soil.

[@John-go3kt]

Love your videos I’ve tried to find out more about calculating activity as in Ci but I haven’t found much whats the equation to use?

[@Observer_Effect]

Cool! Where did you find that?

[@Carl_Willis]

eBay. The purple glass in the radium jar told me this one was gonna be a screamer.

[@stevesether]

Out of curiosity, how contaminated is the outside of the box? e.g. how cautious should you be about any radium + daughter nucleotides on the outside of the box from getting inside your body?

[@Carl_Willis]

There is some moderate (probably microcurie-range) contamination in the box. It's a bit hard to tell how much is from Ra daughters and how much from Ra itself; this will only be clearer after some time has passed.

[@erickaltenbach8654]

Interesting. Thank you sir for more than the video.

[@tomas_g8699]

Hi i wanna ask u something. Could i make neutron gun by using uranium and aluminium foil?

[@Carl_Willis]

This is not likely to produce detectable neutrons. In principle it makes some neutrons, as any alpha emitter in contact with aluminum would, but that number is quite small. It would be indistinguishable from spontaneous fission neutrons from U-238.

[@the_retag]

If you use enough uranium (and dome graphite) you dont need the aluminium

[@dalitas]

damn thats nice, i managed to procure a later model of a german radiumemanator, felma brand 10 000m.e. Its this lovely 25cm tall 8cm diameter chrome finish hexagonal cylinder with a spigot, red nobs of plastic. Youre meant to leave water in it overnight, one of the few things i own that actually scare me slighlty.

[@Carl_Willis]

I have a German "Radium das Leben" emanator of 10000 ME capacity. Nicely built.

[@Inflorescensse]

Mightnt it knock out your immune system taking down inflammation though?

[@LePuputsch]

At lower levels alpha emitters are still used in toothpaste for "inter-tooth" cleaning. Typically meat eating...

[@ajacks1349]

Are you serious... do you have a link to any of those products?

[@inductivelycoupledplasma6207]

Can't wait for Carl to see this one. I call bullshit

[@YS.]

I wonder what was the user's health and how often did he use?

[@LikaLaruku]

Did the amount of exposure you got from just being near it make you sick afterwards?

[@roentgen226]

Probably not

[@ajacks1349]

The effects would likely be more subtle than that...like increased cancer risk later on, as with most radiological hazards from contamination etc etc.

[@cyrillium1960]

I always wonder if radium in an airtight container of 120 microcurie emits more or less alpha rays against 120 microcurie of americium 241?

[@inductivelycoupledplasma6207]

Significantly more, due to its decay progeny decaying primarily by alpha, and would also emit far more beta and gamma. Ra-226 is horrid stuff and makes Am-241 (especially the sources from smoke detectors) look like toys.

[@cyrillium1960]

Thanks

[@jonmarquez128]

16:15 Sound like my old dial up connection!

[@nrdesign1991]

Just let me say that you look extremely similar to Riker from TNG, just with glasses :D

[@roybm3124]

Greetings from the radium girls! Btw: do you know how Bionerd is doing?Haven’t heard anything from her in a while?

[@Carl_Willis]

Taking a break from online stalkers.

[@roybm3124]

@@Carl_Willis Hmm that doesn’t sound good, missing her video’s.

[@drezster]

@@roybm3124 Me too. Her videos is what sparked my interest in nuclear physics in the first place.

[@ejonesss]

you should not even be near that box even if the detector is only picking up alpha particles it is still very dangerous.

[@w5cdt]

That is indeed hot! Radon daughters also include polonium.

[@ТимСид-л2ч]

We have for such a suitcase , will come square guys in black jackets and knitted hats "spit". They will put it in a circular saw and say: It was so.

[@Xantec]

well if it is still THAT hot, and its almost 100 years old, has it reached its first half-life yet?

[@Carl_Willis]

Half-life of radium is about 1600 years, so...no! It'll be hot for a long time to come.

[@Xantec]

@@Carl_Willis jesus christ!!!

[@w5cdt]

Is the purple-ish glass thermoluminescent? It might be.

[@adventureguy4119]

Dude i got super sick after being injected with a tracer how could someone drink this

[@panosvrionis8548]

You need lead gloves 😉😉

[@kingcanada2588]

The glasses turn purple because of radiation Oops sorry you Already said that also is there someway we can communicate since I’m really interested in your videos in nuclear science I am very young best regards Keaton

[@Carl_Willis]

Hi Keaton, thanks for your interest and I welcome conversation. To get my contact information click on my username and then the "about" link; my email is in there. Or you can use my faculty email at the University of New Mexico. I wish you all the best with the hobby!

[@kingcanada2588]

@@Carl_Willis hi Carl I msg you on Facebook

[@418laylah]

Watching this makes me realize that there were thousands made. 😄 You gotta wonder where all this stuff ended up. Lol. CRAZY. Awesome video.

[@ajacks1349]

Much of it probably in the great lakes between the US & Canada...

[@kd5byb]

Nice!!!

[@luisillo3511]

I want to ask you something that isn´t specific to this video, but it is related to a lot of other videos. It is clear that you visit a lot of radioactive places, like the site of a nuclear bomb detonation, super radioactive places at chernobyl, like the red forest or the vehicle cementery and so on. How do you mangage to do this "legaly"?, I mean, those places can't be visited by civilians, and in some videos you are with other scientist so I supose you haven't sneaked into there. Is it because os your work? do you have any "lisence" to do these sort of tings? are you doning research when you go there?

[@Carl_Willis]

I disagree with your assessment that the places described "can't be visited by civilians." It is in fact fairly straightforward to obtain permission to visit locations depicted in my videos. I work professionally as a (civilian) nuclear engineer and am a licensed reactor operator and a university faculty member, which undoubtedly helps with certain types of access. Nothing depicted in my videos is "illegal," but I have dealt with UNINFORMED accusations, and consequently heightened scrutiny, for the entire time I have posted content on KZbin, going back many years. This general phenomenon is familiar to any content creator who posts anything on virtually any subject on KZbin: you get baselessly accused of plagiarism, you get accused of copyright infringement, you get brigades of armchair pseudo-lawyers trying to lecture you about what laws you're breaking, you get ego-stroking pseudo-pedants lecturing you and reporting your content for imagined safety and TOS violations, you get halfwit trolls by the thousands, you get SWATted, you get online stalkers. Welcome to KZbin. These behaviors occasionally cross the line into statutory harassment, at which point you have to retain your own lawyers at cost to deal with the problem.

[@luisillo3511]

@@Carl_Willis thank you for the reply, but I am afraid that you misunderstood my comment or I have misunderstood yours. I never wanted to imply that what you do is ilegal, in fact, I was convived that it was legal, that's why I asked how did you manage to get into these places. I'm sorry for all the people that behaves like you say in your comment. I visited chernobyl two years ago with chernobylwel.com and I asked if I could stop at the red forest or go to the graveyard and they said that those places where prohibited to cicvilans, so I did´t ask more. I supose it only takes a bit more emphais. Just to make it clear, I respect your work and everything you do in your videos.

[@ajacks1349]

@@luisillo3511 I can't comment on this YT'er... Because the Ukraine is the most corrupt country in Europe, one can pay extra to see or do anything by using "unofficial" guides. Plenty of evidence of that online from other YT'er's ...

[@kevinthomas895]

Are you able to visit the new SAFE confinement in Chernobyl? I've been wondering what the plan is to begin cleanup. I imagine they have to start at the top down but its such a clusterfuck mess in there.

[@realSethMeyers]

Bringing the light inside the body. Hilarious!

[@ThePeterDislikeShow]

I bet it was used as treatment for Spanish Flu.

[@BenStJohn-mf3im]

Holy moly another new video?!

[@andreah6175]

I got an EMF problem I need mitigated, imagine trying to explain why/how radium is dangerous be it what proof do you have - Thats my ballpark in something serious. Maybe see some of my vids, you could look at the glimpses oldest to newest to see hoe certain events transpired, its some horrible spiritual awakening yet worse.

[@inductivelycoupledplasma6207]

I'm sorry to say but you need to speak to a health professional rather than asking scientists online. We're only gonna all tell you the same thing

[@inductivelycoupledplasma6207]

I'm sorry to say but you need to speak to a health professional rather than asking scientists online. They're only gonna all tell you the same thing...

[@earlwright9715]

I wonder if this guy has children? If not then he probably cant and thats probably a good thing

[@slapshot1343]

Talk about spicy! I want one!

[@MichaelLeeOne]

It has been 3 years. Are you still alive? lol

[@Carl_Willis]

Of course. I have uploaded more videos since then.

[@jeffreyfugh7602]

Not unusual for people in the early 1900's to carry around gram quantities of radium compounds in vials, hence the unit the Curie, which is the activity of a gram of radium-226. If Radioactive Scout's shed was deemed radioactive enough (just tens of smoke alarm americium sources with a combined activity not even approaching this amount of radium) for the NRC to condemn the structure, this would definitely attract serious government interest.

[@Carl_Willis]

The NRC did not condemn David Hahn's property... Regulatory interest in radium antiquities is codified in 10 CFR 31.12 in the United States.

[@jeffreyfugh7602]

@@Carl_Willis thanks. I looked up and they just sent hazmat people to decontaminate the property. I’ll take a glimpse at the laws.

[@Nuclear_Legacy]

Wow

[@ThePeterDislikeShow]

13:20 and Donald Trump thinks the same about drinking bleach!