Thoriated Tungsten Electrode in Peltier Cloud Chamber

[medialover661]

Shit meant to say tig welding not rig welding stupid auto spell

[medialover661]

Dude there are diffrent types of rig welding rods they are all safe the diffrent rods are used for diffrent metals and types of welds.I am surprised they haven't explained that in school....

[muraturile]

WHAT ARE THIS DENSE MILLIONS SMALL PARTICLES ? THEY LOOK LIKE ARE EMITED FROM ROD.

[jonahansen]

Hey dude - how did you set up your chamber for such a good track contrast? I have one but can't seem to figure how and/or where to illuminate it with respect to the camera to get anything close to this level of visibility. My descending clouds are always visible seemingly no matter what I do - but I can't have tried everything. What's your setup if you don't mind sharing?

[AScannerClearly]

Those look definitely like alpha tracks and not gamma, though the way they seem to be coming out of mid-air instead of from the rod itself looks like it might be Thoron (Radon-220) decay as a much more active daughter element of Thorium than from the thorium itself. Still very cool though!

[vmelkon]

@AScannerClearly Then what about the radiation from the thorium? I am not even sure why there aren't alpha tracks visible from the rod.

[TheUndert0ker]

Thorium is a fascinating element, it has a half life of something like 15 billion years!

[Psimonkey]

I believe that would be the alpha rather than gamma. Only the alpha particles would ionise in such low densities as air.

I am interested in the shape and setup of your chamber, the tracks are very clear and there is clearly little air movement. Perhaps a shot of the machine in the next vid? :)