Radioactive blades

[SaberSentinel]

Tritium is an isotope of Hydrogen. I believe it has two neutrons in the nucleus as opposed to Deuterium which only has one. Heavy water has an isotope of hydrogen instead of Hydrogen in its atomic structure. So tritium could be a componet of heavy water, but I think Deuterium is more common.

Speak softly and carry a big lightsaber.
Old Jedi never die; they just fade away.

[shiky]

deuterium can be found naturally. Tritium however is NEVER found naturally. it will always be found in heavy water, which as stated before, is two tritium atoms, and one oxygen. called heavy water since the tritium is one proton and 2 neutrons, where deuterium is one proton one neutron, and regular old hydrogen is only one proton.

edit: we watch too much spiderman 2 don't we Xwing?

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A Jedi feels the Force flowing through him..

[xwingband]

Well, I remember it somewhat from chemistry that I ironically had just this last semester.[xx(] The memory of it was vague...[]

Come to think of it my best memories of it are from SG-1. That one jerk of a planet wanted it. The Jenai or something like that...

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[WeirdoTransvestite]

The Heavy Water that everyone, who knows of it, thinks of is made up of two Deuterium atoms and one oxygen. It is not radioactive, since Deuterium is not radioactive, and is not harmful to humans. It is essentially a heavier version of regular water.

However I believe there is a Heavy Water made up of Tritium, and that is harmful because Tritium is radioactive

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Asuka Langley Soryu: I'll kill you. I'll kill you. I'll kill you. I'll kill you. I'll kill you. I'll kill you.
-End of Evangelion

Gott weiss ich will kein Engel sein
-Rammstein

[Darth_Dadderall]

Why in the nether hells would anyone want a radioactive saber blade? Do you WANT to have little mutant babies? And you, with the glow-in-the-dark... It's not called glow-in-the-light, is it? How well do you think that would show up?

What is life but the passage to death?

[Mor-El Kesav]

OK but how many millirads of energy would it take to power a lightsaber blade to the appropritate glow level? The dial of a watch is one thing, that much surface area is another. Remember you can't exceed a given amount of exposure (I think it is around 400 millirads per year) without introducing a serious health risk.

So the longer you are around your lightsaber, thusly powered, the greater the risk of radiation induced illnesses.

[Dregan]

How about every police officer or citizen like myself who carries a weapon with tritium nightsights? It's not really a concern. The measurable radiant output in non-visable spectrum RF is in the micro-rad range. Barely discernable. I once ran my gun under a giger meter and barely got a single click.

Now, granted, tritium nightsights have about 2-3 mL of pressurized, vaporized material per tube, three tubes per system, so it's a small amount of tritium. you'd probably need almost half a liter to fill a PC tube, so the intensity would he higher, and the radiant energy as well, but I think that you'd have other challenges before radiation got to be a concern. Mainly, a filled blade, much less a heavy isotope gas, will be very heavy. And on the off chance that you did build one, dueling is out of the question for saety concerns. Imagine a tip flying off and spraying radioactive isotope all over your buddies. Fun! Lastly, even if you did make such a monstrosity, it wouldn't be very bright. Remember glow-in-the-dark toys from when you were a kid? About that bright, at best.

As a point of fact, regarding something else that was mentioned in this topic, a material can radiate any color of visible light. The nightsights on my SW99 are orange/green, as seen here --> Trijicon Dealer