Uranium Glass & Kitchen Cloud Chambers

Adam Ragusea’s cooking channel on YouTube has a post on uranium glass. And how to build a cloud chamber in your kitchen.

A Cooking Channel… By A Really Smart Guy

Adam Ragusea runs a YouTube cooking channel that I rather like. He explains why recipes are the way they are in a way that appeals to my little neurodivergent left-brain scientist’s way.

For instance, he made an instructional video telling you how to make demi glace with much, much, less work than the classic recipe: a low sodium chicken broth reduction with a few umami boosters and unflavored gelatin. It really, really works!

Today he put up a nice video on the early 20th century American fad for uranium-infused glass. It’s kinda pretty, glows strongly under ultraviolet (and a little bit under sunlight), and so on. It was a fad because automation and mechanical molds made it cheap to manufacture.

But… people are always paranoid about radiation. There’s pretty much no danger here since the uranium is safely embedded in the glass, and you’re not eating the glass. I hope.

But the best part: he built a cloud chamber in his kitchen so you can watch $\alpha$ particle tracks! (They’re almost all natural background.) He used a fish tank, some adhesive, a paper towel soaked in 90% isopropyl alcohol, some dry ice, and a pot of hot water.

Absolutely first class!

The Weekend Conclusion

I never built a cloud chamber in my kitchen, just some demi glace.

But it was a good version of demi glace.

At least I thought so.

(Ceterum censeo, Trump incarcerandam esse.)

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Notes & References

Nope.