OneAndOneIs2

A very very small package arrived in the post the other day. As in, smaller than a grain of rice.

It was a small radioactive locator that I've been waiting for since Christmas.

My parents bought me a very small torch, which I turned on and was impressed at how bright it was. And then I learned that twisting the end all the way made it get even brighter still, and that was just an unbelievable amount of light. Seriously, you can light up a room with this torch that's about the size of an AA battery. It's crazy.

The only reason it's not the brightest torch I ever owned is that I made a homebrew dive light once that would take 50watt halogen spotlights. But apart from that, this torch is number one - it's brighter than the six-D-cell maglite I used to own, even.

The only thing it was missing was the locator, due to supply problems. This has now arrived.

And it's quite interesting. It is, as I said, smaller than a grain of rice. It's full of Tritium, which is an isotope of Hydrogen. A beta-emitting isotope.

The tiny ceramic tube is coated with phosphor, which glows when irradiated. So what I basically have is a half-millimeter nuclear glowstick.

It works very well - in a dark room, the little blue light is all you need to be able to find the torch and turn night into day with it. Brilliant idea.

But I was curious as to just how much radiation this thing was putting out - given that it lives in my pocket, and all.

So on Sunday, I took it along to somebody I know who has both very sensitive measuring apparatus, and other radioactive sources to calibrate with (don't ask me why, just accept and move on)

And you know how much this little rice-sized glowstick was putting out?

Bearing in mind that the ceramic tube can only be a fraction of a millimeter thick and the contents generate a fairly decent amount of light?

None.

Not a single detectable electron could we find. The glowing radium from an old watch buzzed away merrily, and the source from a broken smoke detector went absolutely nucking futs, but the glowing torch beacon? Big fat zero.

Which is really quite impressive, when you think about it.

The torches are made by Lummi and if you have any interest in very nice, tiny, but very bright torch, take a look.