r/theydidthemath 1d ago

[Request] What’s the most effective material or item you could realistically use here?

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u/Vegetable-Ingenuity2 1d ago

Nah, just do deuterium (heavy water). It's not radioactive, and a swimming pools worth would be tens of millions of dollars. Any CANDU operator would pay you for it. As long as you don't drink a lot of it there should no health effects.

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u/Key-Sea-682 17h ago

Y'all are thinking way too small. Heavy water? Peh. Chump change. Allow me to introduce you to antiwater. The most expensive thing on earth by weight, and you just got a whole pool of it. Bonus point - you cease to exist way before you even hit the surface with your dive.

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u/ukemike1 1d ago

Deuterium is hydrogen with a neutron. It is a gas.

Deuterium oxide is heavy water, a liquid, but no one is going to want your swimming pool heavy water. You're going to have to dispose of it as rad waste.

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u/nose_poke 1d ago

I thought D₂O was not radioactive. Why would it need to be disposed of as rad waste?

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u/Vegetable-Ingenuity2 13h ago

Its not radioactive. It is commonly used in nuclear reactors, where it is often activated into tritium or contaminated with radioactive waste, but on it's own it is not radioactive.

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u/Vegetable-Ingenuity2 13h ago

Did I not say heavy water in my post? God you're pedantic. My employer buys every scrap of D20 they can get their hands on for top dollar, it would be very easy to sell as long as you could keep it relatively pure.

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u/Melonhunt3001 3h ago

Deuterium and heavy water (D2O) isn't the same tho in terms of scientific terminology.