Talk:Tokaimura nuclear accidents

I was going to suggest another title, but then it would appear that many other languages simply name it "tokaimura something", so I guess it's fine. The Japanese version actually call it the Tokaimura JCO criticality accident. But I suppose it's no big deal.

There are other points I'm going to have to deal with later. For instance, it wasn't 3 workers subjected to a dose over the legal limit, all workers who got over 1 mSv in one day were over the legal limit that I've heard before, but I can not confirm that that was in just one day. So in other words, I don't know how many got a dose over the legal limit, but it was over 3, and those 3 workers are characterized by being at the site of the actual accident and receiving a severe life threatening dose. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:54, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Why is "5 Yen coin" in the external links section? Toby Douglass 10:30, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Because that article contains something about it being used to assess the dose to workers. -Theanphibian ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:05, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Now I see why it has some connection, but it seems to be just a suggestion by some scientists - there doesn't seem to be a record of tests actually being carried out. If someone really wants it to be mentioned in this article, they should actually add a note to the text, not just a completely unexplained link. An even more out-of-place link is the 'Kanji of the year' article, which appears to be in the 'See also' section merely because this incident is relevant there. But for every page that links to, say, mathematics, should the mathematics page also link back to it? Of course not - that would be spammy and inappropriate. To this end, I removed those two links again although I expect someone will again revert the edit.

Destynova 02:54, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

This is the location of the incident. I don't know how to add that into the document so I'll let others to do that. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=tokaimura,+japan&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=52.285401,81.5625&ie=UTF8&ll=36.479707,140.553728&spn=0.003274,0.007017&t=k&z=18 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.128.184.170 (talk) 22:33, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

• Thank you. I added the {Coord} template with the coordinates to the exact building, and even built in eight feet of offset once the GPS coordinates of Japan are eventually updated after the 9.0 earthquake. Greg L (talk) 20:33, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Re cherenkov radiation

As is explained on Criticality_accident, this is wrong, it is *not* cherenkov radiation. I'm not a specialist, though, and I think maybe I should leave fixing this to who inserted the relevant text anyway, he may know best how to judge it now. (I realize that the cherenkov assertion is being made in the referenced text, [[1]], but that doesn't necessarily make it correct of course.) So I'm going to send Greg L a message. --Pflanze2 (talk) 06:53, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

• I remember reading about the Cherenkov (it’s capitalized) radiation and its blue flash when this happened back in 1999. The following sources speak of the blue flash and that it was due to Cherenkov radiation:

1. Michael E. Ryan (who at the time was the professor of chemical and biological engineering and went on to be vice provost and dean of undergraduate education) of the University of Buffalo – “The Tokaimura Accident”; and
2. Makoto Akashi, Director of Research Center for Radiation Emergency Medicine at Japan’s National Institute of Radiological Sciences: “The Medical Basis for Radiation-Accident Preparedness”, The Parthenon Publishing Group Inc., which states “All three workers saw a ‘blue flash’ and heard the gamma-radiation monitor alarm” (direct link to Google Book page). And “All three observed the Cherenkov light flash” (direct link to Google Book return).

More reliable sources can be found with this Google search.

Yes, I see that you base your opinion upon what you read in Wikipedia’s own article, Criticality accident, that every single mentioning about how the blue glow is actually ionized air and not Cherenkov radiation (such as this one This blue flash or "blue glow" is often incorrectly attributed to Cherenkov radiation, most likely due to the very similar color of the light emitted by both of these phenomena. This is merely a coincidence) is uncited. Wikipedia is not in and of itself a reliable source; without citations, the assumption is that assertions on its pages that conflict with reliable sources are in error; 9th-grade I.P.s wade into our pages all the time.

Given that Director of Research Center for Radiation Emergency Medicine at Japan’s National Institute of Radiological Sciences wrote that it was Cherenkov radiation, we go with him and not a very poorly cited article on Wikipedia. The guy who wrote the book (literally) trumps a sloppy wikipedian who has exceedingly high confidence in his or her grasp of advanced particle physics.

Besides, I’m quite well read about the Manhattan project. Some time after the Trinity test, one of the physicists Louis Slotin, was performing a criticality experiment with bricks of plutonium. A brick slipped and he was killed by exactly the same phenomenon (gamma rays, neutrons, and bathed in Cherenkov radiation). Like Hisashi Ouchi, he died. And I see, once again, Wikipedia’s own article on Louis Slotin does the exact same POV-pushing about how it was ionized air and not Cherenkov radiation—and once again doesn’t cite the notion. I don’t know who is responsible for this sort of thing, but it is exceedingly poor writing practice and will absolutely not be coming here—not given the very authoritative Reliable Sources that can be stacked at the end of the line (which I’ll be adding shortly…) Greg L (talk) 17:26, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

• P.S. Having read over our Criticality accident article, it is clear that a wikipedian took it upon him or herself to do some calculations of the required particle energies for beta particles to exceed the refractive index of air. It was all uncited WP:SYNTH and is a clear violation of Wikipedia:No original research. Then the conclusions of that propagated throughout the rest of the article.

  That wikipedian might well be correct. Or that wikipedian could very well be wrong. Other wikipedians expect citations to resolve points of fact.

  I am quite familiar with the calculations required to double check the math over on Criticality accident and even have pre-made spreadsheets to ensure the relativistic effects are properly accounted for. But that’s not the way these sort of things are done. Generally speaking, straightforward math does not need to be cited. But the intricacies of the nuclear physics underlying the phenomenon exceed the standard of the litmus test: that other wikipedians who aren’t experts in the field be able to double check straightforward math without needing specialized knowledge to know which principles of nuclear physics apply in the calculation and which ones don’t. Given the authoritative and exceedingly reliable sources that are cited here at this article, I hold out a darn healthy skepticism of what I’m reading over at Criticality accident and will certainly not be baited into a “who’s a better particle physicist”-game in poring over the math. No way.

  Unless the wikipedian responsible for all that stuff is himself or herself a published RS, the assertions written there can not stand on their own as being irrefutably obvious because “God does not play dice with the universe and the math physics are too simple,” or similar such nonsense. My addition of {{fact}} tags (∆ edit, here) illustrate the proper remedy when faced with WP:OR. Greg L (talk) 18:02, 19 March 2011 (UTC)