Page 118 - playtimes_2011_10

116 Playtimes

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he most inspiring news story I’ve read recently was the one about a man who tried to split the atom at home. I wish I’d thought of that! I read the report out loud to the family: “Science fan Richard Handl attempted nuclear fssion on the kitchen table at his fat in Sweden.” Then I looked up. “Shall we try it?” My daughter headed to the kitchen, reappearing moments later with the bread knife. “I’ve got a knife. Have you got an atom?” she asked.

“Loads,” I said. “Everything’s made of atoms. But I don’t think you can split them with a bread knife. Probably not sharp enough.”

Yay! This was looking good. So all we had to do was open up the smoke detector, fnd the uranium and split the thing. But what with? “I’m thinking a bread knife is a bit too big. What about a razor blade?”

“Still too big,” he said. “The only way to cut an atom is to fre a neutron at it with a neutron gun.” I told him that the only neutron gun we had was a plastic one in my son’s toy box, which was probably not fully functional, although it cost a whopping US$14.95 quite a few Christmases ago. “Can we just throw a neutron at the uranium?”

He sounded doubtful. “I don’t think so. You can make a neutron gun,” he said. “Get a doctor to get you some radium from a hospital, put it into a lead tube, and drill a tiny hole: neutrons will shoot out.”

We were on our way! But then an intractable problem arose in the shape of my wife, who often puts the kibosh on my pet projects, thanks to this weird women-only mental trait she has called “common sense”. Folding her arms, she strictly banned us from splitting atoms of any kind on the dining table. “You might stain it,” she said. “If you have to do it, do it out on the balcony.”

We turned our eyes to the tiny, damp terrace that stuck out of the living room. It was raining heavily. We decided to shelve the project. “The atoms will be wet,” my daughter pointed out. “The neutron might just slide off.”

So the project was abandoned in favour of a game of Monopoly. Still, it was a good learning experience. We now knew the basics of atom splitting/nuclear fssion and could understand why the tsunami caused big problems when it hit the nuclear power plant in Japan. The Fukushima Nuclear Plant boss couldn’t split atoms with all that water around. And his wife probably wouldn’t let him use the dinner table.

Nury Vittachi writes a regular humour column at www.mrjam.org .

nuclear fssion for under-12s

You, too, can split an atom as a home science project, says father-of-three Nury Vittachi .

Unable to do any proper research because of my severe TL affiction (terminal laziness), I phoned a scientifc friend to ask for guidance: “We want to split an atom as a kind of home science project. We have loads of atoms around the house which we’re not really using. If you think about it, probably everyone has.”

There was a stunned silence. Then he told me that he had never before heard of anyone splitting atoms as a way of decluttering their homes. “Atoms are pretty small,” he said. “It might take a while to make any appreciable difference to the clutter in your house.” (He’s been to my home, once.)

I asked him how we should get started. He said that ordinary household atoms were hard to split. “You have to get a uranium-235 atom, because they have crumbly nuclei.” Can one buy them at the supermarket? “Sure,” he said. “But you’ve probably already got some. It’s one of the components of household smoke detectors.”

Everything’s made of atoms. But I don’t think you can split them with a bread knife.