Hi, Dr. Zoomie – I was looking at my son’s search history and found out he’s been looking on eBay for linear accelerators and well logging sources – and he’s only 16! He said he was going to use them to irradiate gemstones to make money to go to college. Can he really make money that way – enough to pay for school? Will it hurt any of us? Oh, and I guess, is it legal? I’m all in favor of him graduating debt-free (although sometimes I think maybe he’s not all that bright) – but I want to make sure his father and I can’t get into any trouble, or lose our hair or something. Help?
Wow – I paid for my education by working in radiation safety, which is a little unusual, but your son sure has me beat. I’d recommend you congratulate him on his entrepreneurial spirit, out-of-the-box thinking, and work ethic…and then ground him for a decade or so for the regulatory and health code violations he was potentially involving you in – not to mention the potential liability. Or, alternately, see if he can make a go of it – he can certainly make enough money to pay for his school if he doesn’t get arrested. And if does get caught then I guess you’re still off the hook for his college expenses since he could end up in jail. So win-win! But let’s go back and talk about why your son’s idea would make him a lot of money, why it could get him into a lot of trouble with the authorities, and why it might (or might not) cause premature hair loss and other health problems.
Why do people irradiate gemstones and how does it work?
Regular topaz is a lovely gem – it takes a nice polish, it’s clear and sparkles nicely, and it’s got a nice brownish-yellow color. But take that garden-variety topaz and stick it into a nuclear reactor and it turns a beautiful deep blue; put it in the beam of an electron accelerator and it becomes a much lighter (and still lovely) light blue. The irradiated topaz not only looks better than the garden-variety straw-colored stone, but it fetches a better price as well.
What give color to a gemstone – or to anything else – is the way that the gem interacts with light. Something that reflects green light and absorbs everything else is going to look green; a gem that reflects blue and red will look purple; a gem that lets different colors pass through at different angles and speeds will sparkle like a diamond. These interactions can be controlled by the spacing of atoms within a crystal, by the spacing of planes of atoms, by the distribution of electrical charge within a crystal, and more. Exposing the crystal to ionizing radiation can deposit electrical charge throughout the crystal; neutron radiation does that as well, but it can also knock atoms out of position, affecting their spacing. All of these changes go together to give irradiated gems a different color – often a color that fetches a higher price than the color of the natural gem. In nature, blue topaz is very rare and fetches a high price – that’s why people irradiate topaz. And the same with other gems, albeit with different colors.
Are there any regulatory issues?
Well…kinda sorta. It’s not really legal to buy a linear accelerator unless you’ve got permission to do so. So even if your son ended up with a LINAC (as they’re affectionately called) in the basement then there’s a chance the sale would be reported to the state or city health or police department, who would likely end up paying you a visit (we got calls like this from time to time when I was working for NYPD). To get a LINAC legitimately your son will need to apply for a permit to purchase a radiation-generating device, explain what he’s going to use it for, explain how he’ll ensure it’s used safely, pay an annual fee, and have an annual inspection to prove it’s working OK. Oh – and the state will have to approve of him to be the Radiation Safety Officer. If he doesn’t do all of that then he’ll be fined, forced to come into compliance with his regulatory requirements and, if he can’t (or won’t) then the state can take actions which can start with cutting the electrical cord and can extend to more fines or (if he really upsets them) even escalate to criminal charges.
That’s for the accelerator.
The radioactive sources he was looking for emit neutrons, just like a nuclear reactor (although at lower intensities). He’s legally not permitted to purchase one of these unless he has a radioactive materials license, which is sort of like a device registration on steroids. Applying for radioactive materials licenses was my bread and butter as a consultant – your son isn’t likely to submit an acceptable license application unless he’s willing to spend several thousand dollars to hire a consultant to do it right. The thing is, the regulators have requirements to be approved as a radiation safety officer, which is a prerequisite for buying one of those sources, and your son isn’t going to meet those requirements, if only because he’s not a legal adult. But he’ll also likely need to have a college degree and take a 40-hour RSO class to meet the requirements to legally own such a source – and that’s not going to happen until, well, after he finishes college. Which means he can’t legally use this as a way to buy the source he wants to use to help pay for the degree he needs in order to own it.
Having said that, he can always forge a radioactive materials license – and it might even be good enough to let him buy a source. The problem is that now he’s making a jump from civil fines to criminal activity. How far are you from the prison he’d end up in? Oh – and since your son is not yet 18, you might be held responsible for his actions, which could really suck.
And how about health risks (including hair loss)?
Well…here’s where things can get interesting.
Radiation dose rates in the beam of a linear accelerator can be dangerously high – you can burn off your fingers if you put them in the beam. Luckily, these devices tend to be installed by professionals, which includes installing radiation shielding and other safety measures. But this costs money – possibly as much as your son hopes to earn. You might be able to get by with installing it in an unused corner of the basement with the beam aimed off into the soil beneath the floor or past a basement wall – but you’re going to have some of the beam scattered back into your basement, and maybe even into your kitchen (or whatever is above that part of the basement). Things like this makes my father’s favorite phrase very appropriate: “There’s only one way to do things, and that’s the right way.” (Actually, Dad might have phrased it differently, but the intent was the same) It’s unlikely that your son will know enough to do this correctly, and as unlikely that he’ll have the instruments to make sure radiation levels are safe.
Radiation exposure from the source won’t be quite as high, but the neutrons from a well logging source gives off are a lot more damaging than the x-rays and electrons from the LINAC. That being said, any source your son might be able to try buying, even with a forged license, won’t give off enough radiation to be dangerous in the short term, although years or decades of exposure might be enough to cause cancer over time.
None of this is enough to cause you to go bald (yay!), but it can make you sick over a period of years or decades (boo).
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And this gets us back to my original thoughts. I admire your son’s ingenuity and imagination and his desire to find a way to cover his college costs. But this approach might not be the best way to go. Sorry…and good luck to him! Also, let him know that the Health Physics profession is sorely short-staffed. If he wants a somewhat less fraught way to pay his bills, he might check out a degree in Health Physics – there are so many positions and so few graduates that, as long as he finishes his degree without a felony conviction, he’ll have multiple job offers. And if he decides to go on to graduate school, he’ll likely be able to get the school to cover his tuition. It’s not as much fun as running a LINAC and covertly buying a radioactive source – on the other hand, it’ll reduce the number of felony convictions he’d otherwise graduate with. That’s got to be worth something!
Header Image Reference:
This image was originally posted to Flickr by Tim Evanson at the following webpage:
https://flickr.com/photos/23165290@N00/7283942412.
It was reviewed on 13 March 2024 by FlickreviewR 2 and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-sa-2.0.
In the header image for this blog article we see a large block of topaz and a small sample of irradiated topaz (in bright blue) on display in the Hall of Gems and Minerals at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.
Topaz is a mineral of composed of two aluminum atoms, a silicon atom, and four oxygen atoms, with two fluorine hydroxide atoms chaining off them.
Pure topaz is colorless and transparent. But when there are other elements present, they impart color and tend to make the gemstone translucent. Topaz can come in a range of colors: dark red, yellow, pale gray, reddish-orange, blue brown, white, pale green, blue, gold, pink, or reddish-yellow.