this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023
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Why do we associate nuclear radiation with a green glow? (kbin.social)
submitted 1 year ago by VoxAdActa@kbin.social to c/askscience@kbin.social
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So I just saw the YouTube video someone posted that showed nuclear reactors starting up, and the first thing I noticed was that they all glowed a very bright, pretty blue. I'm probably an idiot, but I was honestly expecting green, because of many years of dramatized depictions in popular media.

These are probably dumb questions, but:

  1. Why is it blue? As in, what's actually glowing in there, and why do we see it that way?

and

  1. Why do all the movies and comic books and video games go with green instead? Where did that come from?
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[–] tal@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Some possible factors, from reading similar discussions:

[–] muftiboy@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

since 1) and 3) are things that maybe 10 people in the world even know about, it's probably the Simpsons yeah

[–] tal@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

In 2023, yeah, but remember that it isn't in 2023 that the association was made.

Tritium watches used to be a much bigger deal some decades back, as you could actually use the thing in the dark. Subsequent to that, battery-powered digital watches with a light became common, and then a lot of people just moved to using a cell phone to know the time.

As the linked WP article details, uranium glass also used to be more-common prior to the government locking up a lot of supplies of uranium. I've only seen uranium glass in person in museums, and in general, plastic has displaced a lot of glassware today.