Transmigrated as the Crown Prince

Chapter 556 Panama Canal (3)

They were busy until dawn, and the fire caused by the explosion gradually extinguished. The governor hurriedly asked people to check the gates and found that the four gates, each weighing 745 tons, were severely damaged by the shock wave of the explosion and could no longer be used.

In desperation, the governor could only send people to inform the long queues of ships at both ends of the canal, telling them that the Panama Canal was temporarily closed and please avoid it. The fleet suddenly started wailing. This roundabout would have to cover an extra 10,000 kilometers, and most of the ships did not carry that much fuel.

The governor couldn't care less what they did, so he hurried back to the governor's mansion and sent a telegram to Washington. And these fleets also saw the terrible explosion in the early morning, and knew that they were not deliberately trying to embarrass them, so naturally they would not cause trouble. Some simply returned to where they were, and some sailed towards the nearest port. After a while, most of them had dispersed.

After sending the telegram and relaxing, the Governor felt dizzy, weak, and even a little nauseous.

But he didn't think much about it, he just thought he was overworked and just needed a rest.

After returning home, he fell asleep and slept until noon when his wife called him to have lunch. The somewhat pale governor shook his head feebly. "I have no appetite." As soon as he finished speaking, he suddenly struggled to get up, staggered into the bathroom and vomited into the toilet.

Nuclear radiation can harm humans in two ways. One is direct radiation outside the human body, which is called external radiation. The other is that the radiation source contaminates the air, food and clothing, enters the human body through breathing, eating and contact with the skin, and radiates the human body, which is called internal radiation.

The former's radiation is equivalent to an external machine gun. People can at least take corresponding measures to protect against radiation, while the latter is equivalent to installing a machine gun inside the human body. Only the radiation source attenuates below the safe value, or through metabolism. Excreted from the body, otherwise this machine gun will continue to fire in the human body.

As for the effect of nuclear radiation on the human body, we have to start from the molecular level. Nuclear radiation acts on human cells and ionizes or excites biological macromolecules such as DNA, RNA, and proteins. This will cause structural changes and loss of activity of macromolecules. On the other hand, nuclear radiation can ionize or excite water in cells, causing changes in macromolecular structure and loss of activity.

In short, radiation can damage biological macromolecules, thereby damaging or killing cells. In fact, the human body has a certain degree of immunity to this kind of damage, which means that a healthy human body will repair or destroy these damaged cells. However, such immunity has a certain limit. If these radiation damages exceed a certain limit (threshold), the human body will eventually develop some diseases. Such damage will also increase as the amount of radiation absorbed increases.

The governor's wife was shocked when she saw this and hurriedly called the doctor, only to learn that the doctors and nurses from the hospital had gone to the military camp.

"Dear, something is wrong. Many people in the military camp are suffering from vomiting and diarrhea. Doctors and nurses from the hospital rushed over."

The Governor, who had vomited to the point of collapse, collapsed on the bathroom floor and murmured. "Is it collective food poisoning but I haven't eaten anything?"

At this time, not to mention ordinary people, even scientists lacked awareness of the dangers of radiation. After World War II in the original time and space, nuclear powers such as the United States and the Soviet Union had several nuclear explosion tests and then immediately sent unprotected troops into the nuclear explosion zone. As a result, many people suffered from problems within a few years.

Even in 1950, the United States launched a terrible children's toy-"Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Laboratory".

The designer's slogan is to make children "have a stronger desire for science."

This toy box looks like a holiday gift bag filled with snacks. There are four genuine pieces of uranium-containing ore in the box! There are also Geiger counters used to measure radioactive materials, which can be used to detect and collect radioactive samples in your yard. There are also alpha particles composed of lead 210 and polonium 210, beta particles made of ruthenium 106 and gamma rays made of zinc 65: and they are all simply contained in a transparent glass cover.

Lying in the center of the gift bag is the core component of the toy: the "Wilson Cloud Chamber" invented by British physicist Charles Wilson.

The product catalog introduces this high-tech science early education toy: "This set of equipment can definitely produce an amazing sight! It allows you to truly see electrons and alpha examples moving along the track at a speed of 10,000 miles per second. How it looks like! Electrons running at this speed will form wonderful trajectories. You can see the beautiful and intricate trajectories of electron clusters. Observing atoms through a cloud chamber is the most intimate moment we can have with atoms!!!"

The closed cloud chamber is filled with supersaturated water vapor or alcohol. When the charged particles interact with the mixture in the container, the charged particles are injected and ions are generated along the path. The supersaturated gas condenses with the ions as the core. Small droplets, thus showing the particle tracks, people can observe the movement of alpha particles with a speed of 1s from this device.

"Users should not remove ore samples from the canisters as they are prone to flaking and breaking, and you risk the spread of radioactive ore in the laboratory." This is the warning that comes with the Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Laboratory, but this warning Not based on a health hazard, but as a bad scientific practice: removing the ore from the tank will increase background radiation, thereby invalidating the results of your experiment.

Such a high-tech early education toy was not expensive at the time, only $5.

Some people may wonder why such a high-tech and high-gold product is sold so cheaply?

Developer Gilbert's autobiography "The Man Who Lived in Paradise" published in 1954 said of this toy: "This is an educational toy of which we are most proud, and it was developed through many experiments and efforts by our employees. As a result of our work, the government at the time privately supported the design of our toy because the government felt that our results could help the public better understand atomic energy. We also received help from the country's top nuclear physicists at the time, and were fortunate enough to work with us. We cooperate with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and our Atomic Laboratory toys do not have any fakes. They are all genuine materials. Of course, the cost is too expensive. We are actually selling at a loss. One set is sold at a loss, but There is no denying that this atomic energy laboratory is the most thorough and perfect science toy ever created!"

This guy proudly described it as the most novel and scientifically inspiring scientific and educational toy in the world.

Of course, if you want to play happily with this high-tech scientific early education toy, you need to risk being exposed to radiation.

At that time, there were many children playing with this toy until they had nosebleeds and dizziness before realizing something was wrong. Therefore, the output was not large, and less than 5,000 sets of Gilbert tool kits were sold.

It was not until the mid-to-late fifties that scientists proposed dose limits, safety thresholds, etc., and the 1rp (International Commission on Radiological Protection) established annual dose limits for workers and the public.

And now no one would even think that someone would use radiation as a weapon.

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