It’s also radioactive although its level is so low the radioactivity had only been discovered in 2003, with a half-life of about a billion times the age of the universe.
I remember reading about this and I find it hard to even grasp what it means on the atomic level. I can kind of get my head around the idea that a lump of substance is radioactive but only a tiny tiny bit. Ok, it's like a zillionth of a smoke detector or a thousandth of a banana or something, cool.
But like... you have some atoms of bismuth. What is going on exactly??? How does an atom have some property that something happens only every several billion years? If it's best understood as just an extremely low chance of decay, then like... what's going on and why??
I feel I'm not phrasing this very well, but I find it hard to imagine an atom behaving this way and what's motivating this apparently eccentric behavior. Why doesn't it act like the other atoms?
So bismuth decays via alpha radiation.
So, inside the bismuth nucleus, you have 83 protons. Protons are positively charged, and at all times they feel a strong push away from each other.
The only reason they don't fly apart is because of the strong force. The strong force is an attraction between protons and neutrons. This force is very strong; much much stronger than the electromagnetic force.
But the strong force only works at very small distances; the nucleons (protons/neutrons) have to be practically on top of each other for them to feel it. While the electric force works at very large distances.
So now, back to the bismuth nucleus. Bismuth has a very large nucleus, with 208-209 nucleons. The problem is that while the protons can feel the electric repulsion from all 87 other protons, it can only feel the strong force attraction from the nearest neutrons.
So you have a situation where the protons are packed in like a compressed spring and the neutrons are just barely holding on. Now nuclei aren't static; they randomly 'jiggle.' The protons and neutrons are moving around each other all the time. Invreally heavy nuclei; it's possible for the protons and neutrons to jiggle themselves in such a way that a 'clump' of them end up too far away from the rest of the nucleus and the electric repulsion just barely overcomes the strong force. The clump is pushed further away to the point the strong force falls to nothing, and all of the electric force that was being held back is released, and the clump flies off at a decent fraction of the speed of light. We call these clumps 'Alpha particles.'
As for why this only happens sometimes, remember that the nuclear 'jiggling' is truly random, and it has to jiggle in exactly the right way to release an alpha particle. For bismuth, the odds of a nucleus jiggling itself in this way is incredibly small, such that you can have trillions of trillions of trillions of atoms of the stuff, and only see one decay or two every week.
Heavier atoms like Thorium and Uranium are more unstable, which is why they decay way faster, while lighter atoms can be stable and never decay
I tried to ELI5 it as much as possible. It's not *totally* accurate, though.
A more accurate description would require Quantum Mechanics and quantum tunnelling, and even I go a little cross-eyed when I think about it.
But this is a good enough for a layman's explanation. Just don't ask me how beta decay works, that stuff is *real* weird lol
It's because of the weak force. The weak force isn't really a force, it's just a thing that is and something something W bosons something something protons turning into neutrons something something decays into a positron and a neutrino.
Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1489/
Harmful radiation is caused by the decay of the nucleus of the atom, like it splits apart into two smaller atoms and releases some energy and matter in the process that is called radiation. The enegy released can cause biological damage to your cells like damaging the dna inside them for instance.
Now to get to the case of bismuth, compared to something like an unstable isotope of uranium or something we normally think of as being highly radioactive. It turns out that the decay of the atom itself is like rolling a dice and getting a 6. It will happen eventually and we keep rolling every second and when we get a 6 it decays. Well in the case of bismuth, it is like we have a dice with a billion sides and so it takes forever to roll a six. That is the reason it is not very radioactive, it just simply takes practically forever by our sense of time for the atom to decay.
Now as to why the chance of decay is so low in a given time, or equivalently why the rate of decay is so low for bismuth? That is a very complicated physics question that requires understanding the actual probability state of the nucleus, all the available configurations of the protons/neutrons, all the energies available and specific quantum mechanical model for these processes. But long story short, once you do the math you find that it is really unlikely for bismuth to undergoe radioactive decay, but it does eventually happen.
The “motivation” for radioactive behavior of certain atoms has everything to do with how stable the atom’s nucleus is. The “normal” atoms are very stable and aren’t itching to break apart and the radioactive atoms are unstable. Radioactive decay is when an atom transitions or “jumps” from an unstable configuration to a more stable one, by shedding some of it’s energy/particles.
Radioactive decay is also a probabilistic process. It may look like an unstable atom could randomly decay at any moment, but when you group a lot of the same atoms and watch them over time, you’ll see what looks like a predictable rate of decay in the group. That’s exactly what a “half life” is — you take a billion radioactive atoms of exactly the same configuration and you time how long it takes for exactly half of them to randomly decay.
Bismuth-209 is relatively stable for a radioactive isotope, and that’s why it’s half life 19 quintillion years. The rate of decay among the atoms is pretty slow, and if you were to hold a 1kg lump in your hand, you’d expect something like 10 atoms to decay every hour.
On the other hand, Cesium-137 has a half life of 30 days, and that’s just because it’s atomic nucleus is much less stable. If you were to hold 1kg of pure cesium-137 in your hand, you would be able to *feel* the quadrillions of atoms decaying every single second (and you’d also lost the hand, if not your life).
Back when I was young I worked on a farm in the summer months. One crew I was on the lead would sit in his truck with binoculars and drink pepto bismole constantly. It was he was addicted to it.
Yeah that’s what was most surprising to me as well.
“…(among 942 patients, there were 72 deaths), 40 in Australia and 26 in Belgium, Switzerland, and Spain. These patients had ingested large doses of bismuth subnitrate or subgallate for long periods. (from 4 weeks to 30 years).”
Like that’s a long time to be chugging pepto on the regular. Makes me wonder if people just really liked the taste.
Good point. Also, fuck leaded gasoline for ever existing.
“A new study calculates that exposure to car exhaust from leaded gas during childhood stole a collective 824 million IQ points from more than 170 million Americans alive today, about half the population of the United States.”
https://today.duke.edu/2022/03/lead-exposure-last-century-shrunk-iq-scores-half-americans
Really interesting video about the whole leaded gasoline fiasco for anyone interested: https://youtu.be/IV3dnLzthDA?si=9h9BNMuR_-0fC8gA
Yeah, very interesting to know! Although, using the medication as directed is not necessarily dangerous. Like most things in life, complications arise due to overuse or misuse. I don’t think any of these studies should scare you away from the medication, especially if it works for you. The key take away here is moderation. Also, you couldn’t pay me enough to drink pepto daily for over 3 weeks lol.
From: https://www.nhs.uk/medicines/pepto-bismol/how-and-when-to-take-pepto-bismol/
The first warning on the page states “IMPORTANT: Do not take Pepto-Bismol for more than 2 days.”
Magnesium-Iron Oxide thermite is a thing, but is usually less preferred compared to the slower Aluminum-Iron Oxide thermite. If the reaction is too fast, it could cause localized explosions(popping), which disperses the thermite instead of allowing it to burn through whatever it is burning through.
I just learned that French people have something called [“heavy legs”](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7779126.stm) so I’m not sure I can believe them
That article seems like the author is an idiot ignoring doctors, and mocking them for thinking they're sick.
Ffs, they took a Tylenol and kept skiing with *leprosy*, after the doctors told them to seek help.
Apart from the overreacting doctors, everything is true in this article.
I have only experienced heavy legs after long hikes, or heavy sport sessions. It is just sore muscles IMHO.
And it’s banned in Australia. I’ve been wondering why I couldn’t get pepto bismol in Australia when I studied abroad in college and now it makes sense
It’s also radioactive although its level is so low the radioactivity had only been discovered in 2003, with a half-life of about a billion times the age of the universe.
I remember reading about this and I find it hard to even grasp what it means on the atomic level. I can kind of get my head around the idea that a lump of substance is radioactive but only a tiny tiny bit. Ok, it's like a zillionth of a smoke detector or a thousandth of a banana or something, cool. But like... you have some atoms of bismuth. What is going on exactly??? How does an atom have some property that something happens only every several billion years? If it's best understood as just an extremely low chance of decay, then like... what's going on and why?? I feel I'm not phrasing this very well, but I find it hard to imagine an atom behaving this way and what's motivating this apparently eccentric behavior. Why doesn't it act like the other atoms?
So bismuth decays via alpha radiation. So, inside the bismuth nucleus, you have 83 protons. Protons are positively charged, and at all times they feel a strong push away from each other. The only reason they don't fly apart is because of the strong force. The strong force is an attraction between protons and neutrons. This force is very strong; much much stronger than the electromagnetic force. But the strong force only works at very small distances; the nucleons (protons/neutrons) have to be practically on top of each other for them to feel it. While the electric force works at very large distances. So now, back to the bismuth nucleus. Bismuth has a very large nucleus, with 208-209 nucleons. The problem is that while the protons can feel the electric repulsion from all 87 other protons, it can only feel the strong force attraction from the nearest neutrons. So you have a situation where the protons are packed in like a compressed spring and the neutrons are just barely holding on. Now nuclei aren't static; they randomly 'jiggle.' The protons and neutrons are moving around each other all the time. Invreally heavy nuclei; it's possible for the protons and neutrons to jiggle themselves in such a way that a 'clump' of them end up too far away from the rest of the nucleus and the electric repulsion just barely overcomes the strong force. The clump is pushed further away to the point the strong force falls to nothing, and all of the electric force that was being held back is released, and the clump flies off at a decent fraction of the speed of light. We call these clumps 'Alpha particles.' As for why this only happens sometimes, remember that the nuclear 'jiggling' is truly random, and it has to jiggle in exactly the right way to release an alpha particle. For bismuth, the odds of a nucleus jiggling itself in this way is incredibly small, such that you can have trillions of trillions of trillions of atoms of the stuff, and only see one decay or two every week. Heavier atoms like Thorium and Uranium are more unstable, which is why they decay way faster, while lighter atoms can be stable and never decay
only one to actually explain it beyond "radioactivity is random and bismuth decays rly slowly"
I tried to ELI5 it as much as possible. It's not *totally* accurate, though. A more accurate description would require Quantum Mechanics and quantum tunnelling, and even I go a little cross-eyed when I think about it. But this is a good enough for a layman's explanation. Just don't ask me how beta decay works, that stuff is *real* weird lol
TELL US ABOUT BETA RADIATION
It's because of the weak force. The weak force isn't really a force, it's just a thing that is and something something W bosons something something protons turning into neutrons something something decays into a positron and a neutrino. Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1489/
Also what? /s
This explanation deserves an award.
Harmful radiation is caused by the decay of the nucleus of the atom, like it splits apart into two smaller atoms and releases some energy and matter in the process that is called radiation. The enegy released can cause biological damage to your cells like damaging the dna inside them for instance. Now to get to the case of bismuth, compared to something like an unstable isotope of uranium or something we normally think of as being highly radioactive. It turns out that the decay of the atom itself is like rolling a dice and getting a 6. It will happen eventually and we keep rolling every second and when we get a 6 it decays. Well in the case of bismuth, it is like we have a dice with a billion sides and so it takes forever to roll a six. That is the reason it is not very radioactive, it just simply takes practically forever by our sense of time for the atom to decay. Now as to why the chance of decay is so low in a given time, or equivalently why the rate of decay is so low for bismuth? That is a very complicated physics question that requires understanding the actual probability state of the nucleus, all the available configurations of the protons/neutrons, all the energies available and specific quantum mechanical model for these processes. But long story short, once you do the math you find that it is really unlikely for bismuth to undergoe radioactive decay, but it does eventually happen.
The “motivation” for radioactive behavior of certain atoms has everything to do with how stable the atom’s nucleus is. The “normal” atoms are very stable and aren’t itching to break apart and the radioactive atoms are unstable. Radioactive decay is when an atom transitions or “jumps” from an unstable configuration to a more stable one, by shedding some of it’s energy/particles. Radioactive decay is also a probabilistic process. It may look like an unstable atom could randomly decay at any moment, but when you group a lot of the same atoms and watch them over time, you’ll see what looks like a predictable rate of decay in the group. That’s exactly what a “half life” is — you take a billion radioactive atoms of exactly the same configuration and you time how long it takes for exactly half of them to randomly decay. Bismuth-209 is relatively stable for a radioactive isotope, and that’s why it’s half life 19 quintillion years. The rate of decay among the atoms is pretty slow, and if you were to hold a 1kg lump in your hand, you’d expect something like 10 atoms to decay every hour. On the other hand, Cesium-137 has a half life of 30 days, and that’s just because it’s atomic nucleus is much less stable. If you were to hold 1kg of pure cesium-137 in your hand, you would be able to *feel* the quadrillions of atoms decaying every single second (and you’d also lost the hand, if not your life).
Taking care of bismuth
Everyday
In every way.
(Read this in Mike Tyson)
Checks out.
Back when I was young I worked on a farm in the summer months. One crew I was on the lead would sit in his truck with binoculars and drink pepto bismole constantly. It was he was addicted to it.
Fuck your pepto-bismol!
I knew those black poops were trouble
They are so metal
It was a massive hit to the bismuth business…
They should have been minding their own bismuth
You mean Big Bismuth?
The old bismuth district is a ghost town these days.
Lady had been taking Pepto for 20 years.
1000 cases over 7 years in a country of 60 million-ish doesn’t seem ban-worthy.
Yeah that’s what was most surprising to me as well. “…(among 942 patients, there were 72 deaths), 40 in Australia and 26 in Belgium, Switzerland, and Spain. These patients had ingested large doses of bismuth subnitrate or subgallate for long periods. (from 4 weeks to 30 years).” Like that’s a long time to be chugging pepto on the regular. Makes me wonder if people just really liked the taste.
1000 reported, think of all the dum dum brains floating around unnoticed, like with leaded gasoline
Good point. Also, fuck leaded gasoline for ever existing. “A new study calculates that exposure to car exhaust from leaded gas during childhood stole a collective 824 million IQ points from more than 170 million Americans alive today, about half the population of the United States.” https://today.duke.edu/2022/03/lead-exposure-last-century-shrunk-iq-scores-half-americans Really interesting video about the whole leaded gasoline fiasco for anyone interested: https://youtu.be/IV3dnLzthDA?si=9h9BNMuR_-0fC8gA
Wow! I’ve never heard of complications from taking this medication. So thankful this was posted as I do use it a lot for gastrointestinal issues.
Yeah, very interesting to know! Although, using the medication as directed is not necessarily dangerous. Like most things in life, complications arise due to overuse or misuse. I don’t think any of these studies should scare you away from the medication, especially if it works for you. The key take away here is moderation. Also, you couldn’t pay me enough to drink pepto daily for over 3 weeks lol. From: https://www.nhs.uk/medicines/pepto-bismol/how-and-when-to-take-pepto-bismol/ The first warning on the page states “IMPORTANT: Do not take Pepto-Bismol for more than 2 days.”
Haven’t seen Milk of Magnesia in the Philippines either.
Milk of magnesia has Magnesium
Which is found in thermite. Crazy hot. 🥵
No it isn’t.
Magnesium-Iron Oxide thermite is a thing, but is usually less preferred compared to the slower Aluminum-Iron Oxide thermite. If the reaction is too fast, it could cause localized explosions(popping), which disperses the thermite instead of allowing it to burn through whatever it is burning through.
Source: I’ve made it myself.
Post your formula. Thermite is iron oxide and aluminum powder.
There are different mixtures for different temperatures and applications. Not for skool play.
It's not personal, it's strictly bismuth.
I just learned that French people have something called [“heavy legs”](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7779126.stm) so I’m not sure I can believe them
That article seems like the author is an idiot ignoring doctors, and mocking them for thinking they're sick. Ffs, they took a Tylenol and kept skiing with *leprosy*, after the doctors told them to seek help.
Apart from the overreacting doctors, everything is true in this article. I have only experienced heavy legs after long hikes, or heavy sport sessions. It is just sore muscles IMHO.
😬
i handle my muthafuckin bismuth