Becoming a mad scientist - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: PeterFW
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2015, 07:53:42 pm
content: Hello!There are moments you have to step back and think about what you are dooing.Today i had one of those...QuoteOk, it is not that bad, they are only very, very mildly radioactive uranium glass pebbles.You could eat them, flying on a plane gives you a bigger dose.But still...Greetings,Peter

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2015, 07:59:43 pm
content: Two mantras for the mad scientist:1. Fools! I'll destroy them all.2. Mad! They call me mad.

author: SL4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2015, 10:28:50 pm
content: Is CRAZY the same as MAD ?If yes, then I'm well along the way to ignorance nirvana.

author: Artlav
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2015, 10:41:14 pm
content: What do you mean "people complain", officer?There is no law against playing music with lightning bolts!

author: rolycat
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2015, 10:52:09 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on March 26, 2015, 07:59:43 pmAnd not forgetting:"I'm not mad, I just get these headaches."- Achmed the Mad** acclaimed author of the Necrotelicomnicon and Achmed the I Just Get These Headaches's Book of Humorous Cat Stories

author: PeterFW
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2015, 11:14:06 pm
content: I just remembered, i still have this video up...This was my application project for the league of doom, sadly i never to the quantum flux stabilised...

author: Artlav
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2015, 11:26:40 pm
content: Quote from: PeterFW on March 26, 2015, 11:14:06 pmSigh."This video is private.Sorry about that."Nothing to be sorry about, Youtube. It's not your fault.

author: PeterFW
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 26, 2015, 11:47:42 pm
content: Quote from: Artlav on March 26, 2015, 11:26:40 pmIm sorry... the link should work now.I must have set that to private and forgotten about it. I do not know why.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2015, 03:59:36 am
content: Are you also on / aware of SMDB by any chance?I don't spend much time there these days, but any self respecting (self hating??) mad scientist should be at least familiar;www.sciencemadness.org/I can't say I condone experiments involving heavy elements such as uranium, but I won't generally oppose them, either.Tim

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2015, 04:12:40 am
content: Mad? When most scientists realise how little they are going to be paid for the rest of their lives they're bloody furious.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2015, 04:52:42 am
content: Quote from: coppice on March 27, 2015, 04:12:40 amVery good and very true! And one of the reasons I got out early.But they do have this to entertain themselves with:The Journal of Irreproducible Results

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2015, 07:44:19 am
content: http://www.narbonic.com/"But we're not limited by the POSSIBLE, are we?"

author: sdg
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2015, 09:48:04 am
content: Have hump, don't mind being near corpses (even living ones), will travel.Just in case one of you gentlemen is hiring...

author: DenzilPenberthy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2015, 12:03:22 pm
content: You're only a mad scientist if you're testing a mad hypothesis

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2015, 12:55:32 pm
content: Quote from: PeterFW on March 26, 2015, 07:53:42 pmOk, it is not that bad, they are only very, very mildly radioactive uranium glass pebbles.Sadly, the geiger counter will be useless. Uranium glass (I was disappointed to discover) has such low activity I can't see any noticeable count, even right next to the scintillator. A UV lamp would be more useful for finding them.

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2015, 01:01:06 pm
content: Quote from: Prime73 on March 26, 2015, 10:58:55 pmThat cover art isreallyannoying. 100KV+ on battery charger leads? Why is the current taking the air gap, rather than via his hands?Was the artist truly that ignorant? Or is the picture just a mean attempt to troll the technically aware?

author: Artlav
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2015, 01:18:45 pm
content: Quote from: TerraHertz on March 27, 2015, 01:01:06 pmHe just altered his biology to run on silicon instead of carbon, making the body resistance near infinite. Duh.

author: PeterFW
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2015, 02:36:04 pm
content: Quote from: TerraHertz on March 27, 2015, 12:55:32 pmMy SBT-11 alpha tube has no problem picking it up, i get at least 75 cp/m above background radiation at ~2cm distance.Edit:Even the STS-7 (very closely related to the SBM-20) has no problem finding it at 25 cp/m, but you have to take your time.Only my pin diode detector falls short, but it has only a 1/100th of the detection area and will have a better spatial resolution

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2015, 02:42:40 pm
content: U-238 is an alpha emitter, and alphas have a relatively short range, especially compared with gammas. Most radiation detectors are more appropriate for gammas (photons), so using a detector designed for alphas is better.

author: max666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2015, 03:40:49 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on March 27, 2015, 02:42:40 pmThe daughter nuclides won't all be alpha emitters anyway, so you will pick up their radiation even without an alpha detector. And alpha particles generally only travel a few centimetres in air.But I guess for close range positioning, an alpha detector could be useful, like say finding the lost uranium on your desk under all the piles of Cobalt-60.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2015, 06:31:24 pm
content: The complete decay chain of U238 down to stable lead Pb206 involves a series of alpha and beta emitters, but no gammas. Betas have a range intermediate between alphas and gammas. Seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decay_chain#Uranium_seriesfor the "Uranium series". Betas are easier to detect than alphas, but not so easy as gammas. Specifically, the detector must have a thin window to allow betas to pass through. Most of the total energy of the decay is in alphas, but a substantial amount is in betas.

author: dexters_lab
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 27, 2015, 07:47:44 pm
content: the world would be a dull place without some mad scientists!A sample of uranium mineral / ore will be emitting pretty much everything, dont forget about secondary emission... google for Bremsstrahlungthere is no shame in enjoying what your passionate about, i'm planning a trip to Chernobyl / Pripyat for myself and some friendsIf your interested in radioactive stuff there is plenty on my youtube channel

author: mathsquid
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2018, 12:38:28 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on March 26, 2015, 07:59:43 pm

author: bsudbrink
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2018, 07:32:37 pm
content: Father's day present this year:

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 23, 2018, 09:27:18 pm
content: The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different resultsWhere a true mad scientist finds the things that give different results every time and works to understand why.*looks over to exeriment running in the workshop composed of 15 different ebay chemistry apparatus connected together in a frightningly bodgy way and shakes fist*

author: Cyberdragon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2018, 12:03:52 am
content: This old thread needs to be updated with our favorite mad youtubers...Mad scientists often do crazy things for the hell of it..."So I was in my garage making explosives..."Y'all know who I'm talking about...

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2018, 03:10:40 am
content: If you haven't yet seen it:

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2018, 07:16:37 am
content: What does the "mad" in "mad scientist" refer to? Angry? Crazy? Insane? Crazy/insane how?I'm more of a nutty professor type myself (although I'm neither a professor nor made out of nuts), but I do love to science.

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2018, 10:33:38 am
content: generally to earn the mockier "mad" you either need to reach a point where anyone looking at what your doing without context would turn and run. even if you have all the safeguards in place.Or you get to the point where you Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (old movie reference), where you see the problems and not the symptoms and approach things in ways people attacking symptoms see as crazy.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2018, 11:49:59 am
content: Quote from: Rerouter on June 24, 2018, 10:33:38 amMy work is usually the opposite: people get exasperated with me for overengineering things, and being too paranoid about security and robustness (I tend to trust no-one, not even myself). What does that make me, the sane but dull scientist?Quote from: Rerouter on June 24, 2018, 10:33:38 amYou mean, as in answeringthe underlying problemrather than the question someone asked?Quote from: Rerouter on June 24, 2018, 10:33:38 amOh, that. No, I don't qualify then, because they see me and my work asnot cost effectiverather than crazy (even when I show how much it saves in the medium to long term).

author: VEGETA
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2018, 12:27:55 pm
content: The only one worthy of the title "crazy mad scientist" is Hououin Kyouma. He created really interesting gadgets which can be done by us if we really put effort into it.

author: MT
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2018, 12:34:20 pm
content: Becoming?!...

author: apblog
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2018, 04:32:29 pm
content: Are you sure aren’t actually a mad engineer?http://cowbirdsinlove.com/46

author: ebastler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2018, 04:58:31 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on June 24, 2018, 11:49:59 amThe obsessive-compulsive scientist?

author: dmills
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 24, 2018, 08:50:26 pm
content: That LANL archive on madscience is fascinating!Seems the NIF was at least somewhat about pit physics with the civilian fusion research a nice side effect (No real surprise there, the MTF stuff will have been much the same).Also some good stuff on fast pulsed power for things like EBW and slappers, and a very funny squabble between LANL and the air force over cleanup of an old ICBM site that suffered a fire, the requested changes to the report by the airforce (Which are attached as an appendix) have some very funny attempts at spin (Basically the airforce wanted to consider the AVERAGE activity in the rubble they wanted to dispose of, (which would make it low activity waste) where LANL were looking at PEAK activity which makes it special nuclear material waste. Seems the costs of disposal change somewhat when there is meaningful amounts of Pu in play.Now, where did I put that Lithium 6 foil?Regards, Dan"FOR SCIENCE!"

author: Eka
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2018, 02:22:19 am
content: Are-U-Me? Also an old RPG reference?Quote from: Nominal Animal on June 24, 2018, 11:49:59 amParanoid Scientist. I've been called that.Quote from: Nominal Animal on June 24, 2018, 11:49:59 amThey didn't like it when I wanted to add job training subsidies and moving expense subsidies to the available unemployment benefits. That was stepping over department boundaries...Can't do that even though a comparable sized country was saving hundreds of millions a year by doing it.Quote from: Nominal Animal on June 24, 2018, 11:49:59 amPenny wise, pound foolish. Ran into it often.I hate the way some doctors like to treat symptoms rather than dig down and figure out what is really going wrong. The pharmaceutical industry and reliance on them to do all new drug development isn't helping. When NIH had the money to do research, real cures were found, not symptom masks that provide income streams for the companies that develop them.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 25, 2018, 08:38:15 am
content: Quote from: Eka on June 25, 2018, 02:22:19 amI think I am more of a paranoid professor/teacher type, then, because I can never just state how things are. I seem to have to explain the basis or reasoning, too.Quote from: Eka on June 25, 2018, 02:22:19 amIt is easier to just oil the squeaky wheel, than actually investigate. Never attribute to malice what you can attribute to stupidity or laziness, or something like that.But yes, the pharmaceutical and health industries providetreatments, not cures. Curing their customers would deprive them of a steady source of revenue.It isn't cost-effective.