I got this book because it seemed like a cool edition of The Foundation Trilogy. I later discovered that it glows in the dark when I turned the lights off to go to sleep.
That was the context times they were in. Nuclear sciences were new, and miraculous; but they didn’t quite know how dangerous it was to be around, so Asimov envisioned it was safe to have tiny little nuclear reactors powering personal shields around one’s neck
But how do we know that the assumption is not them having perfect nuclear shields? To be fair, besides fusion, our most powerful source of energy is still nuclear. And fusion is not close to being practical yet.
Because of the comments about the “glow” of radiation and such like.
It’s commonly forgotten that humans can actually see X-rays- before people knew how dangerous it was, it was common for researchers to see it. The glow is literal- In low light with enough intensity, yiu can see a hazzy bluish glow when an X-ray source is on the other side of, say, a wooden door.
The thing is, at that level of intensity… well it’s very much not good for us
That was the context times they were in. Nuclear sciences were new, and miraculous; but they didn’t quite know how dangerous it was to be around, so Asimov envisioned it was safe to have tiny little nuclear reactors powering personal shields around one’s neck
But how do we know that the assumption is not them having perfect nuclear shields? To be fair, besides fusion, our most powerful source of energy is still nuclear. And fusion is not close to being practical yet.
Because of the comments about the “glow” of radiation and such like.
It’s commonly forgotten that humans can actually see X-rays- before people knew how dangerous it was, it was common for researchers to see it. The glow is literal- In low light with enough intensity, yiu can see a hazzy bluish glow when an X-ray source is on the other side of, say, a wooden door.
The thing is, at that level of intensity… well it’s very much not good for us