this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] expatriado@lemmy.world 104 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (4 children)

if it looks that hot, fission is pretty active and a lot of particles are coming your way. better put it under water and attach a turbine to the vessel, and a generator to the shaft

[–] WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com 56 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

My shaft is where all my generation comes from. /s

[–] expatriado@lemmy.world 27 points 3 months ago

more like the future generation

[–] edgemaster72@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

I typically get My Generation from The Who

[–] dellish@lemmy.world 26 points 3 months ago (5 children)

Ahhh water. Blocks alpha particles. Disables magnets. Is there anything this wondrous liquid can't do?

[–] janus2@lemmy.zip 33 points 3 months ago (2 children)
[–] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago
[–] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Depends on the amount of compression you’re trying to achieve, the water’s temperature, and your definition of “easy”. Near freezing, ice is compressible. Because the increased pressure causes the freezing point to rise, which causes it to melt. And liquid water takes up less space than ice.

[–] Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It can dissolve a lot of things too

[–] WhyIHateTheInternet@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

It can also decide what can and cannot breathe in it

[–] krooklochurm@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

If you reverse a magnet it makes water more west

[–] dellish@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

I do hate it when my magnets develop a West pole.

[–] Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Are you sure it’s not more south?

[–] krooklochurm@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 months ago

West by counterclockwise up actually

[–] JATtho@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

Be in one fraction at once. H2O consist of differerent quantum-mechanical portions: para-water and ortho-water.

And it only gets weirder.

paljastusNo. Don't google para-hydrogen. You will break your brain.

[–] fullsquare@awful.systems 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

this is how 238Pu ceramic pellets for space probe generators look like, no fission required just alpha decay. If it was fission, it wouldn't need to glow like this entire time because you can just turn it off

[–] gnutrino@programming.dev 4 points 3 months ago

Well, either you can turn it off or you're about a microsecond away from being vaporized.

[–] CookieOfFortune@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Doesn’t this contaminate the water?

[–] expatriado@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

my comment is oversimplified and partly joke, but nuclear power plants use mostly uranium fuel pellets, which are inserted in metal fuel rods and these into another metal container called fuel assemblies, before the are lowered into the water pool, so fuel and water don't touch each other, and the vapor cycle is a closed system

[–] oxideseven@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

It also only would contaminate the things in water and not the water itself if i understand correctly

[–] BussyCat@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

Well it can activate water itself and make F-18, H-3, and N-17 from just H20

[–] girsaysdoom@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

From what I remember, the water that is near the fissile material is in its own closed loop tank and has heat exchangers that transfer heat to another water loop that goes to the turbines.

[–] mercano@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

In a pressurized water reactor, yes. In boiling water reactor, steam is formed in the reactor vessel and is sent directly to the turbines. While in operation, the turbine area is too radioactive for human presence. Fortunately, the radioactive byproducts carried in the steam are all very short lived, so it only takes a few minutes cool off.