[HN Gopher] GoPro Ride Through an Electron Beam Irradiator at Fu...
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       GoPro Ride Through an Electron Beam Irradiator at Full Beam Power
       [video]
        
       Author : firebaze
       Score  : 123 points
       Date   : 2024-02-19 11:36 UTC (11 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
        
       | wkat4242 wrote:
       | I wonder what that thing is actually used for
        
         | r2_pilot wrote:
         | In this video, it's for examining calcite according to the
         | description; I believe I've also seen similar devices used for
         | making lichtenburg figures in acrylic.
        
           | Ballas wrote:
           | You might be correct on both counts:
           | https://fusor.net/board/viewtopic.php?t=8666 (I'm not sure if
           | this is the same run, the link in my link seems to be dead)
        
           | GordonS wrote:
           | I believe they are used to irradiate cannabis too (to kill
           | mould & yeast) - electron-bean irradiation retains much more
           | terpenes than gamma irradiation does!
        
             | GordonS wrote:
             | Yes, a lot of commercially grown cannabis is,
             | unfortunately, irradiated. Different countries (abd
             | different US states) have different laws about the amount
             | of mould and yeast that are permitted on sold cannabis
             | flowers (as well as other things, such as moisture
             | content). The target is quite hard to meet got some
             | markets, including the UK and EU.
             | 
             | To get to the required levels, irradiation isn't
             | _necessary_... but it 's cheap and easy. I get the sense
             | that it's often used because of poor growing practises,
             | more than anything else.
             | 
             | I can't speak for other countries, but in the UK most
             | cannabis has until recently been gamma irradiated - which
             | often led to practically terpless flower that smelt of damp
             | hay. More recently, e-beam (electron-beam) irradiation has
             | largely taken over - and it seems to be much, much kinder
             | on terpenes! Honestly, most is now impossible to tell apart
             | from non-irradiated flower.
             | 
             | I don't have actual data, I'm afraid. There's a single
             | paper talking about cannabinoid and terpene content of
             | cannabis after gamma irradiation, which was paid for by
             | Bedrocan - but I haven't found anything about how it
             | compares to e-beam.
        
           | joarv0249nw wrote:
           | Could be for food irradation:
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation
        
         | chankstein38 wrote:
         | I believe I was actually at this facility around the time this
         | video was taken! I was there with a large group mixing
         | scientists and others who were sending acrylic through it to
         | make captured lightning/lightning sculptures/lichtenberg
         | figures! It was a really cool experience!
         | 
         | I met this guy there: https://www.capturedlightning.com/
        
         | myself248 wrote:
         | One common use is cross-linking polymers. If you've ever used
         | cable with XLPE insulation, it was initially extruded onto the
         | wire as normal polyethylene, then spooled back and forth
         | between drums passing under an e-beam system like this, to
         | perform the cross-linking. It's phenomenally tough stuff after
         | that; a lot of cars use XLPE (in its thinwall TXL spec) wiring.
        
         | nhecker wrote:
         | "The irradiation facility is the Mercury Plastics NeoBeam
         | facility which is used for cross linking plastics" --
         | http://www.rtftechnologies.org/physics/neobeam-m12d10y2016.h...
        
       | joarv0249nw wrote:
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation
        
       | lordfrito wrote:
       | I never thought I'd see a Resonance Cascade, let alone create
       | one.
        
       | geocrasher wrote:
       | That looks a lot like several levels of the first Portal. That
       | conveyor system didn't run on GladOS, did it?
        
       | proactivesvcs wrote:
       | Huh, so those factory and warehouse levels in Quake II were
       | accurate? Stuff does just get ferried around on conveyor belts
       | for seemingly no reason.
       | 
       | Pleasing taste, some monsterism.
        
         | Arrath wrote:
         | Seems safer than having a PhD push the sample into the electron
         | beam with a trolley.
        
           | perihelions wrote:
           | The PhD's cheaper.
        
             | csours wrote:
             | The first grad student is cheaper. The lawsuit ... ehhh
        
               | giantrobot wrote:
               | Lawsuits require survivors. The implications are clear.
        
           | toxik wrote:
           | _They're waiting for you Gordon, in the test chamberrr..._
        
           | dylan604 wrote:
           | But no PhD would do physical labor. That's what undergrads,
           | PhD candidates, or even the interns are for.
        
         | LeoPanthera wrote:
         | I recently watched a short YouTube video detailing the process
         | of making high-end rice cookers in a Japanese factory:
         | 
         | https://youtu.be/xLCwr8qG1p4
         | 
         | The process includes parts being moved around on some of the
         | shortest conveyer belts I've ever seen, in some cases moving
         | just a few feet before being picked up by another person.
        
           | jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
           | The tightest bottleneck sets the pace for the whole line, so
           | yeah high volume manufacturing can get into really detailed
           | optimization.
        
             | pests wrote:
             | Yep. Even in the linked video around 3:20 the assembly
             | makes a short 3foot trip on a conveyer. There's a cut there
             | but you could imagine instead of walking the part that
             | distance and back now they have half the next item already
             | done. Looks like some are used as a small queue for the
             | next station as well to give some slack to timing
             | variations.
        
             | patcon wrote:
             | Ah just like with the "PhD student" joke in another thread:
             | the value is likely in the "workers compensation case"
             | savings when you can show that you did everything humanly
             | possible to mitigate risk of injury, should there be a
             | claim
        
         | ooterness wrote:
         | In this case, the long twisty tunnel is necessary for operator
         | safety. Even if you're not in the beam itself, anything within
         | direct line-of-sight is getting irradiated by various secondary
         | effects. Having a few right-angle turns in the entry and exit
         | tunnels mitigates this to acceptable levels.
        
           | cgannett wrote:
           | You can tell that's absolutely what its for because right
           | after the turn you start seeing the static from the electrons
           | messing with the camera.
        
           | guitarsteve wrote:
           | It also provides a natural place to hide loading screens
           | between levels! ;-)
        
       | ein0p wrote:
       | I'm surprised it not only survived this, but also did not even
       | stop filming.
        
         | scaredginger wrote:
         | It was shielded
        
         | i80and wrote:
         | I wondered about that, but from the description:
         | 
         | > GoPro is enclosed in a 3/8" thick lead pig with a 1/2" thick,
         | 50% lead glass window. Additionally there is a 1/4" thick lead
         | plate above the camera box to provide shielding from direct
         | irradiation from the beam.
        
       | animatethrow wrote:
       | Aliens could plausibly sterilise earth from light years away
       | using an electron beam, according to a great Kurzgesagt episode:
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tybKnGZRwcU
       | 
       | An electron beam seems to be the stealthiest of the three
       | extermination options, the other two being a star laser and
       | antimatter "rods from God."
        
         | FirmwareBurner wrote:
         | _> An electron beam seems to be the stealthiest of the three
         | extermination options_
         | 
         | Or they could just false flag a nuke strike and watch us
         | sterilize ourselves.
        
           | gridspy wrote:
           | A lot of effort is currently put into tracking missile
           | launches and predicting ballistic trajectories. The goal is
           | to give some warning if a nuclear strike is launched.
           | 
           | It would be obvious if a strike came from an extraterrestrial
           | source, there would be no terrestrial launch detection.
           | 
           | In addition, such a attack is unlikely to succeed. It would
           | take a long time to arrive on earth and by the time the
           | result of the attack was known there could be angry
           | Earthlings counterattacking.
        
             | Onavo wrote:
             | If they entered the atmosphere stealthily and launched from
             | sea level, then it would appear to be similar to a
             | submarine launched missile.
        
             | AtlasBarfed wrote:
             | The state actor would probably assume a surreptitiously
             | placed space-borne nuke, like on a "space telescope" or
             | other larger satellite.
             | 
             | You don't need all that fuel to get it into space, it's
             | already there. You just drop the warhead.
        
             | dylan604 wrote:
             | The aliens would have superior tech, so hacking into our
             | systems would be trivial. They could just launch an actual
             | nuke rather than lobbing one in from space.
        
               | throwanem wrote:
               | People assume this and I never understand why. Even if we
               | postulate highly complex realtime computing as a
               | necessity for controlling a superluminal engine, why
               | assume an entire technological history unrelated to ours
               | would make it trivial, or for that matter _possible,_
               | that even FTL-capable extraterrestrials can compromise
               | earthly systems?
               | 
               | 'The thing about aliens is they're _alien._ ' - why
               | assume this only works in one direction?
        
               | dylan604 wrote:
               | You're assuming that the aliens are _alien_.
        
               | throwanem wrote:
               | If there's a reason to assume otherwise, I've yet to
               | become aware of it. Or are you getting at something more
               | earthly in scope?
        
               | nextaccountic wrote:
               | A common trope in sci fi is that aliens are actually
               | people from the future traveling back in time
        
               | throwanem wrote:
               | That's fair; I suppose I _am_ assuming this story doesn
               | 't have that kind of Golden-Age twist in it...
        
               | dylan604 wrote:
               | Or from the same planet but spread out via FTL travel
               | either ships or wormhole gates. After all, we were made
               | in the image of _THE_ creator, right?
        
               | throwanem wrote:
               | Speaking of Golden Age twists! And not fully thought-
               | through ones, at that. It requires two assumptions: first
               | that there exists a yahweh-style creator deity, and
               | second that Genesis 1:26 is accurate to fact. Even taking
               | both as axiomatic, this approach still further assumes
               | that _this_ likeness, namely the one in which we as
               | humans are made, must also be the _only_ likeness in
               | which a mortal could be made after its creator.
               | 
               | Given the assumptions of faith under which we here labor,
               | it may also be wise to heed 1 Cor. 2:11, in which the
               | convert Roman makes one of his few worthy statements in
               | warning men against imagining they can know the mind of
               | God. In that light, the proposition lacks soundness even
               | under its own axioms.
        
               | dylan604 wrote:
               | >It requires two assumptions:
               | 
               | You're kidding right? It's all SciFi. In case you're
               | confused, the Fi is short for Fiction. Stuff that's not
               | real. So of course we're making assumptions on the entire
               | thing. Including The Book as the greatest selling book of
               | fiction of all time.
               | 
               | You're also now assuming that _we_ Earthlings are the
               | original source. Some scifi tropes state we 're more
               | Martian fleeing their dying planet or with things like
               | panspermia. I like the SciFi where everyone is searching
               | for the nearly mythical planet that turns out to be
               | Earth. Ice Pirates is a goofy one.
        
               | throwanem wrote:
               | Of course we're making assumptions. But if we don't
               | choose to either be bound by the assumptions we've
               | already made or re-evaluate them, then we're playing with
               | dolls rather than worldbuilding. Your pastimes are of
               | course your own business, but it's been a long time
               | indeed since I graduated from the former to the latter.
        
             | krisoft wrote:
             | > It would be obvious if a strike came from an
             | extraterrestrial source, there would be no terrestrial
             | launch detection.
             | 
             | There would be no launch detected, that is true. That
             | doesn't mean that it would be obvious that the attack was
             | extraterestrial. The alternative hypothesis would be the
             | that the known terrestrial enemies developed some technique
             | to confuse your sensors, or cloak themselves, or bribe your
             | watchdogs, or pre-position warheads in space, or any other
             | similar deception. People would be sooner thinking that
             | their enemies smuggled nukes in overland than to think that
             | aliens attacked them.
        
           | shkkmo wrote:
           | Or just nudge a couple of big asteroids into collision
           | courses
        
           | randomname93857 wrote:
           | They probably can do that much cheaper: just come up with two
           | opposing conspiracy theories, and people will naturally
           | divide into 2 camps and will eagerly kill each other.
        
         | perihelions wrote:
         | That's probably physically impossible for a charged-particle
         | beam (like electrons). It would defocus itself from its own
         | self-interaction, as well as from interaction with intervening
         | magnetic fields.
         | 
         | On this theme: we know several types of natural, astrophysical
         | accelerators of charged particles--but none of those are
         | observed as a localizable source of charged particles, from the
         | perspective of astronomy. We just see secondary photons.
        
           | JumpCrisscross wrote:
           | > _probably physically impossible for a charged-particle beam
           | (like electrons)_
           | 
           | That's the point of the relativistic part of a relativistic
           | electron beam. Time dilation doesn't give the beam internal
           | time to self interact.
        
       | orbital-decay wrote:
       | Related:
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoli_Bugorski
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr%E1%BA%A7n_%C4%90%E1%BB%A9c_...
        
       | cgijoe wrote:
       | So... what would happen if you took a ride with it? Instant
       | death? Painful death? Slow death over several days? I need
       | details!
        
         | Analemma_ wrote:
         | Depending on the voltage, you might die immediately from being
         | electrocuted, or a few days later from radiation poisoning. The
         | stories of the people who died from the Therac-25 machine are
         | probably instructive:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25#Radiation_overexposu...
        
         | jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
         | There's a Russian Physicist that was in an accident where a
         | proton beam went through his head:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoli_Bugorski He lived but
         | with some brain injury. I'm not sure what the differences in
         | effect electrons vs protons and a focused vs diffuse beam would
         | be though.
        
       | evanjrowley wrote:
       | For those of you who chucked reading the Half Life references in
       | that video's comments, here's a video for you:
       | https://youtu.be/XfgN-EzthJM?si=_yilEGjcCdEf1sYP
        
       | SomeoneFromCA wrote:
       | Ha, now I see why I suddenly got it in my youtube
       | recommendations.
        
       | ethbr1 wrote:
       | I didn't realize how much Valve mentally linked miniature rail
       | cars, physics, and Half Life for me...
        
         | totetsu wrote:
         | The tripod is a trigger too
        
       | sandworm101 wrote:
       | Like the original Pirates of the Caribbean, but with science!
       | 
       | Fyi, if you start seeing those little single-pixel stars in your
       | VR headset, you have probably wandered out of the play area.
        
       | conjecTech wrote:
       | Didn't expect to see a familiar face at the end! Andrew, if
       | you're reading this, greetings from a fellow RoboJacket!
        
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