Rant on a movie
On the flight over, I watched the movie Next. It has Nicholas Cage, and he is able to see into the future. Well, the Dept of Homeland Security thought this might be useful in helping to stop an impending nuclear explosion by a terrorist group. The thing I didn't like was one small reference.
They track down where the bomb was put together, and they inspect the scene. Of course, by then, the group is gone and so is the bomb (how convenient). They do find one thing on the scene: a jar of potassium iodide. "It's used to treat people for radiation" (or something along those lines).
Here's my rant:
While it does help protect against radiation, it only protects from one type of radiation. Or, more specifically, one isotope. Iodine-131. It's a radioactive iodine, and was one of the biggest contaminants of the Chernobyl incident. Iodine-131 attacks the thyroid gland, and potassium iodide protects the thyroid from exposure and from being absorbed if exposure has already occurred.
Iodine-131 is a product in a nuclear reactor, I agree. We can clearly see that from the Chernobyl story. And, it is possible component of nuclear fallout (the residual nuclear radiation from a surface burst nuclear explosion). That's true. But I've never heard of it actually being used in a nuclear warhead. Enriched uranium, plutonium, tritium...all good stuff. 131, not-so-much.
It only has a half-life of about 8 days, so when you build the weapon you only have about 8 days to use it before the Iodine decays to a level where it isn't a significant hazard. Which is actually pretty short if you consider that all conservative military estimates say that radioactive fallout is only decayed to safe levels 14 days after the detonation. What is the safe level, you ask? It's no more than 50 roentgens in a 24 hour period. That's the command level of acceptable exposure to military personnel.
Maybe they were going to administer the potassium iodide to their personnel directly before the explosion if they were in the downwind hazard area (accepting that they aren't going the martyr way and dying in the initial blast area). That's a possibility, but why have is staged colocated with the bomb itself? It doesn't make sense. Call me crazy, but I just don't get it.
I think hollywood people should have to go through an advanced nuclear physics class before they are allowed to think about using a nuclear attack in a movie. That's just me.
Comments? I'm always up for a good debate.
Always
Dr 9