Ping: LARGE HADRON COLLIDER

[LLB]

Where'd you read that Linford? There is and was plenty of helium about, and the knowledge to extract it fairly cheaply from natural sources was well within Germany's means even then. I imagine it was more the catastrophic reputation of hydrogen airships that did it for them - even in countries like the US with almost limitless supplies of the stuff.

They'd have been crap for bombing in WW2 for obvious reasons.

I think it was on the discovery channel in a doc about the Hindenberg

Helium was initially selected for the lifting gas as it was the safest to use in airships (absolutely nonflammable). At the time it was extremely expensive, available only from one or two mines in the United States under military control. Hydrogen by comparison could be cheaply produced by anyone and had considerably more lift. The American rigid airships using helium were forced to conserve the gas at all costs and this hampered their operation. While a hydrogen-filled ship could routinely valve gas as necessary, a helium-filled ship had to resort to dynamic force if it was too light to descend, a measure which took a toll on its structure. Initially the United States was willing to sell helium to the Germans, but soon a military embargo against Germany forced the re-engineering of the Hindenburg to use hydrogen for lift. Although the danger of using hydrogen (which unlike helium is flammable) was obvious, there were no alternative gases that could be produced in sufficient quantities that would provide sufficient lift. One beneficial side effect of employing hydrogen was that more passenger cabins could be added. The Germans' long history of flying hydrogen-filled passenger airships without a single injury or fatality engendered a widely-held belief that they had mastered the safe use of hydrogen. While the decision to fly with hydrogen may appear incredibly dangerous today it can be seen as quite reasonable at the time. The Hindenburg's stunning first season performance appeared to demonstrate this conclusively.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ_129_Hindenburg


Ta-da

 

[ufkacbln]

Trouble is we are relying on unpopular technologies.

The "radiation" that I inject and track is provided by a system that relies on a supply of Molybdenum. This relies on the existence and working of a few specific nuclear reactors. The one at Petten has closed due to a fault - that potentially affects every single department in Europe!

However try suggesting that we build a couple of new reactors to prevent this problem recurring!

 

[magnatom]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there was a problem with the supply or the price of helium in the thirties, but rather that airships had pretty bad safety and
manoeuvrability problems. I thought there was plenty of helium available in the German part of Silesia and Saxony.

Uncle Mort, I was only disagreeing with the comment

There is and was plenty of helium about

There is a shortage at the moment and it is projected to get worse.

I personally have no idea about what LLB was referring to as there weren't too many MRI scanners around then, oh and neither was I!

 

[magnatom]

Trouble is we are relying on unpopular technologies.

The "radiation" that I inject and track is provided by a system that relies on a supply of Molybdenum. This relies on the existence and working of a few specific nuclear reactors. The one at Petten has closed due to a fault - that potentially affects every single department in Europe!

However try suggesting that we build a couple of new reactors to prevent this problem recurring!

Radiation! Radiation! Arrrgghh!

Of course the radiologists in my department love to point out that research suggests that radiation actually prolongs their, admittedly wretched, lives


All this chat of Nuc Med is bringing back bad memories of my Grade A training days, although radiotherapy was far worse!