throopw@dg_rtp.UUCP (Wayne Throop) (05/07/86)
> The Cable News Network, as well as National Public Radio, have > been using the term "nuclear fire" and "graphite fire" in conjunction > with what appears to be a tragedy in the Soviet Union. I'm not > a physicist (I'm a psychologist), and am not familiar with these > terms. Don't worry. The media made up these terms on the fly... they mean essentially nothing "scientific". A "graphite fire" is a fire where carbon in the form of graphite is buring, just as a wood fire is a fire where wood is burning. A "nuclear fire" is essentially meaningless in the context (it is meaningless to talk about nucleons "burning" except in metaphor), but we may conjecture that the "science correspondent" that re-coined the term meant that there was a fire where the gaseous combustion products were to some degree or other radioacive. Note that "nuclear fire" is sometimes used to imply that a nuclear reaction is proceeding, as in "the Sun burns with nuclear fire", or "the city was destroyed by nuclear fire", or "the power plant uses nuclear fire", or whatnot. From the context it is likely that they weren't talking about any of these, and were inventing the "radioactive combustion products" meaning for the term. > What fuels a nuclear fire besides oxygen and heat? How does one > fight such a fire? Are there dangers other than the contaminated > exhaust put out by such a fire? Are there differences between a > nuclear fire and a graphite fire? What fueled the fire at the Chernobyl plant was oxygen and carbon. You fight such a fire by depriving it of oxygen, or cooling it below the ignition point, and this was made difficult because water couldn't be used in this case (because the resulting steam would have spread more radioactive material, an analog of the reason why you shouldn't use water to fight an electrical or grease fire... cure worse than disease). Sand or whatnot could have been used, but they couldn't deliver it effectively from far enough away to avoid the radiation. Some "smotherant" agent was apparently air dropped on the plant, but the effectiveness is unknown. There are no particular dangers of such a fire, other than the contaminated exhaust (which is *very* dangerous). In this case, the "nuclear fire" *was* a graphite fire, pure and simple (or rather, impure and complicated, but then...). But this leads me to one of my pet peeves. The news media is scientifically illiterate. Nuclear energy is one area where the media is spectacularly ill informed (and an area where dis-and-mis-information abounds in the media), but biology, medicine, engineering in general, spaceflight, and in fact *all* even remotely technical subjects are grossly mishandled in the media. Here are two of my favorite examples, both subject to slight errors in memory, as I heard them on the way to work, and entered them into our local "quote of the day" database from memory as being too amusing to pass up. I will, however, vouch for the accuracy of the main ideas and phrasings in these reports. Uh... let me rephrase that. They aren't *accurate*, it just that this is essentially what was announced on over the air, and purported to be "science news". Refering to a shipment of uranium hexafloride lost at sea: "... this dangerous nuclear hexafloride gas ..." --- An ABC Television "science corespondent" Where did everything come from? Was it the Big Guy in the Sky, or a Big Bang on a planet out in space? Did everything evolve from a single cell in a primordial ooze? I don't have the answers, but new studies of insulin, the female hormone, may show that everything was created seperately, just as it is now. --- An ABC radio news announcer (The fact that both of these examples are from ABC doesn't mean that the other networks are any better. I assure you all that they are just as bad or worse. And no, neither of these were broadcast on April First, nor were either of them clarified or corrected later.) BUT.... if you *really* want to get my dandruff up, do what more and more newscasters are doing. Confuse "silicon" and "silicone", as in "silicon glue" or "silicone chips". Really causes me to polish my molars. I sometimes think that the next time some Max-Headroom-type airheaded "science correspondent" who hasn't studied "science" for more than five lifetime-cumulative minutes says something about "silicone valley" or "silicone chips", I'll hunt the creature down and rip out... Well, maybe I'm getting carried away. But I *would* like to see every television set equiped with buttons which would allow the viewers to zap the newsreaders with enough voltage to get their attention when they make, let us be mild here, inexcusably boneheaded blunders, as they often do. Radios and newspapers too. So there. -- Wayne Throop <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw
kwh@bentley.UUCP (KW Heuer) (05/15/86)
In article <337@dg_rtp.UUCP> dg_rtp!throopw (Wayne Throop) writes: >Don't worry. The media made up these terms on the fly... Oh good. Now I can add "nuclear fire" to my collection, which already includes "flying saucer", "test tube baby", and "star wars". (The UFO allegedly *moved* like a saucer (skipping over water); in vitro fertilization occurs in a Petri dish; I see no connection between the SW movie and Strategic Defense/High Frontier.) Karl W. Z. Heuer (ihnp4!bentley!kwh), The Walking Lint