Talk:Radium dial

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This page says that production peaked during the 1900 decade, but another (linked to it) says that the paint was invented in 1908. Some cross-checking seems warranted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.124.61.215 (talk) 19:57, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

The sentence "One estimate of radiation exposure caused by wearing a watch painted with radium is 10-1000 millirads." is confusing: millirad is a dose, not a dose rate (dose per time). Thus, one would have to specify how long one must wear such a watch in order to absorb this dose. Andre.holzner (talk) 21:31, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Replacement?

"radium dials have largely been replaced by tritium based light sources." What about phosphorescent light sources too? most normal watches only have phosphorescent glow, tritium watch faces don't seem common at all, and most other consumer products with glow is phosphorescence not radioluminescence, so it's surly just as much a replacement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.100.195.46 (talk) 22:43, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

I certainly agree. I revised the article to reflect this. Thanks! Scientific29 (talk) 23:17, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Removal of source

I had to remove this from article due to ambiguity. See my edit summary. I like to saw logs! (talk) 04:30, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

One estimate of radiation exposure caused by wearing a watch painted with radium is 10-1000 millirads.

I think watches are rather safe.

The so-called dangers of watch dials is contradictory and confusing. Paper stops the radiation, but steel and glass watches do not? Radium watch hands are $12/set online.

Both of these clauses are meaningless: "Radium dials have been shown to have dose rates near the face of in excess of 10 µSv / hr, which would deliver a dose equivalent to one days background exposure in around 20 minutes." Would that be in high-elevation Denver Co, or sea level? ...etc... "Near?" Needs expanding, clarification. None of the "dangers" are sourced. It all seems to be nuke-hysteria related, except the manufacturing-in-ignorance and other ingestion dangers for which it was "banned."

I found these jargon-rich, thus useless facts elsewhere:

NCRP Report 56 indicated that the estimated average dose equivalent to the gonads of an individual wearing a radium-containing watch was approximately 3 mrem per year. The estimated dose from a watch containing 4.5 uCi of radium, a very large amount, would be 310 mrem per year to the gonads. Note that the associated risk here is much lower than if the dose had been the same over the entire body.

In the previously mentioned study of pocket watches by the National Center for Radiological Health, measurements using TLDs and a human phantom indicated that the annual dose to the gonads was 60 mrem (assuming that the watch was worn 16 hours per day).

If you are going to assert dangers, then those terms need to be explained in plain language and concepts. Like compare to bone x-rays or gain in elevation, or living in granite mountains with a background radiation dose over 8 mSv per year. There has been too much hysteria and baseless fear mongering for people to trust undefined jargon and unsourced or vague claims. IOW, I think this topic requires more certitude/veracity than usual.--2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:4C96:1655:66E8:C150 (talk) 04:54, 25 November 2019 (UTC)Just Saying...

can anyone find information about the composition of these paints?

I have looked online and can't seem to find information about the specific composition of radium luminescent paint. The most detailed I have seen is "a mixture of Ra-226 and zinc sulfide." What form is the radium in? My guess would be RaCl, RaBr, or RaSO4, and that material probably isn't pure (radium salts form solid solutions with lighter alkalai earth metals). I would also assume that a binder is present. Dibromoindigo (talk) 20:15, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Not exactly what you asked but here's a quote from Radium Girls that might help finding a source for the information you are looking for:

"The Center for Human Radiobiology was established at Argonne National Laboratory in 1968. The primary purpose of the center was providing medical examinations for living dial painters. The project also focused on the collection of information and, in some cases, tissue samples from the radium dial painters. When the project ended in 1993, detailed information of 2,403 cases had been collected. This led to a book on the effects of radium on humans. The book suggests that radium-228 exposure is more harmful to health than exposure to radium-226. Radium-228 is more able to cause cancer of the bone as the shorter half life of the radon-220 product compared to radon-222 causes the daughter nuclides of radium-228 to deliver a greater dose of alpha radiation to the bones." Nakonana (talk) 18:12, 28 April 2023 (UTC)