What's the most radioactive element?

The title of "most radioactive" depends on context: Polonium (Po), specifically Po-210, is often cited as the most radioactive naturally occurring element due to its intense alpha emissions, causing self-heating and extreme toxicity. However, in terms of overall radioactivity and instability, synthetic elements like Oganesson (Og) (Element 118) and other superheavy elements are far more so, though they decay in fractions of a second.

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Which is the highest radioactive element?

The most radioactive element is polonium-210. It's incredibly radioactive and can release a lot of energy in the form of alpha particles. Because of its high radioactivity, it's very dangerous and must be handled with extreme care in specialized facilities.

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What is the deadliest element?

The title of the deadliest element is often debated, but many consider polonium to be one of the most lethal. This element is highly radioactive and extremely toxic, even in minuscule amounts. A microgram of polonium-210 can deliver a lethal dose if ingested or inhaled.

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Is radium or polonium more radioactive?

A milligram (5 curies) of 210Po emits about as many alpha particles per second as 5 grams of 226Ra, which means it is 5,000 times more radioactive than radium.

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What can 1 gram of plutonium do?

One gram of plutonium can produce as much energy as 100 g of uranium or 1 metric ton of oil. This plutonium is extracted from the materials contained in used fuel at the Orano La Hague site.

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Britain’s Atomic Gamble: How Windscale Engineers Built the West’s First Plutonium Reactor

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Was Hiroshima uranium or plutonium?

The fissile material for the Hiroshima bomb was uranium-235. Inside the bomb, the enriched uranium was divided into two pieces, both smaller than a critical mass.

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Who has 90% of the world's nuclear weapons?

Russia and the United States together possess nearly 90% of the world's nuclear weapons, with Russia holding the largest total stockpile and the U.S. having a substantial number of deployed strategic warheads, making them the dominant nuclear powers by far, despite other nations like China, the UK, France, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea also having nuclear arsenals. 

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Did any radium girls survive?

Mae Keane, One Of The Last 'Radium Girls,' Dies At 107 In the 1920s, working-class women were hired to paint radium onto glowing watch dials — and told to sharpen the brush with their lips. Dozens died within a few years, but Keane quit, and survived.

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Did Oppenheimer use plutonium or uranium?

The team used Uranium-235 and Plutonium-239 as their primary materials, both of which required intricate chemical processes for their extraction and purification. Oppenheimer's role involved directing a diverse team of chemists, physicists, and engineers towards a shared goal – creating the world's first atomic bomb.

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Is polonium in vapes?

Polonium-210 can be found in traditional cigarettes and other tobacco products. That's because tobacco plants absorb it and other radioactive materials from the soil, air and high-phosphate fertiliser. Whether polonium-210 is found in aerosols produced by e-cigarettes remains to be seen.

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What is the rarest element ever?

Astatine. Astatine is a chemical element; it has symbol At and atomic number 85. It is the rarest naturally occurring element in the Earth's crust, occurring only as the decay product of various heavier elements. Most of astatine's isotopes are short-lived; the most stable is astatine-210, with a half-life of 8.1 hours ...

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Why does tobacco have polonium?

Radioactive materials, like polonium-210 and lead-210 are found naturally in the soil and air. They are also found in the high-phosphate fertilizers that farmers use on their crops. Polonium-210 and lead-210 get into and onto tobacco leaves and remain there even after the tobacco has been processed.

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Why is element 119 impossible?

Attempts to synthesize element 119 push the limits of current technology, due to the decreasing cross sections of the production reactions and the probably short half-lives of produced isotopes, expected to be on the order of microseconds.

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What happens if I touch uranium 235?

Because uranium decays by alpha particles, external exposure to uranium is not as dangerous as exposure to other radioactive elements because the skin will block the alpha particles. Ingestion of high concentrations of uranium, however, can cause severe health effects, such as cancer of the bone or liver.

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Is radium still used today?

Most uses of radium have been replaced by other radioactive materials or radiation generating devices. However, radium is still being used today in certain applications, such as industrial radiography.

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Can I buy uranium 238?

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission allows for the sale and transportation of uranium to the public if certain conditions are met; the most pressing of which deals with the maximum allowable quantity any one person may own (7kg).

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Why didn't Einstein like Oppenheimer?

"The trouble with Oppenheimer is that he loves a woman who doesn't love him — the United States government," Einstein once said, according to the book "American Prometheus," which the movie is based on. That's an "Einstein-level burn," Wellerstein said.

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Who regrets making the atomic bomb?

It was a thrilling time for Oppenheimer, who told the crowd in August 1945 in the place where the bombs were designed and built about his only regret: not that thousands of people had been killed, but that “we hadn't developed the bomb in time to use it against the Germans” earlier in World War II.

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What was Oppenheimer's IQ?

J. Robert Oppenheimer's IQ is unknown because he never took an official test, but estimates place him in the 130s-140s, suggesting very high intelligence, though some debate if IQ fully captures his genius, considering his vast knowledge in languages, literature, and physics, Britannica. While one source suggests 135 (99th percentile), others emphasize his polymath skills and leadership, noting IQ tests don't cover creativity, which was crucial to his success, IMDb. 

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How long will Marie Curie's notebook be radioactive?

A few of her books and papers are still so radioactive that they are stored in lead boxes. For example, Marie Curie's notebook from 1899–1902, containing notes from experiments on radioactive substances, is still radioactive and will be for 1,500 years.

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Who was the worst radiation exposure in history?

Albert Stevens (1887–1966), also known as patient CAL-1, was an American house painter from Ohio who was subjected to an involuntary human radiation experiment and survived the highest known accumulated radiation dose in any human.

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How much money did the Radium Girls get?

Fearing that they would not survive a lengthy trial, the women and their lawyers made the decision to settle the case out of court in June 1928. Each Radium Girl was awarded $10,000 in damages and $600 per year for the rest of their lives. All their legal and medical bills were to be paid by the company.

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Who is the king of nuclear weapons?

The Tsar Bomba (code name: Ivan or Vanya, internal designation "AN602") was the most powerful nuclear weapon or weapon of any kind ever constructed and tested. A project of the Soviet Union, it was a thermonuclear aerial bomb, tested on 30 October 1961 at the Novaya Zemlya site in the country's far north.

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Is the A-10 nuclear capable?

-The concept undermined the A-10's role as a close air support aircraft, which is designed to fly low and provide tactical support, whereas nuclear weapons are strategic and require high-altitude delivery. -The weight of nuclear bombs, combined with the A-10's distinctive airframe, made the idea impractical.

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