What’s my favorite color?

What’s my favorite color?
I’d have to go with cherenkov blue.

The Cherenkov Effect is electromagnetic radiation emitted when a charged particle passes through
an insulator at a velocity greater than the speed of light in that material.
It creates a blue glow. You’ve probably seen it a million times on film.
Sci-fi movies show it all the time, but when you see it in person it looks impossible…
Mitla’s dad Spero is a physicist. He had worked as head of the IPEN (the Institute of Nuclear and Energetic Research)
in the University of S?o Paolo. He took us there, he thought it would be cool. I thought so too!

The whole experience is amazing…You have to wear a lab coat to go in. You wear a radiation meter
to see if your radiation increases when you are done with the visit. You pass a Geiger counter on your
way in and out. All ventilation in the building blows into the main room, so if there is an accident
the radiation does not escape into the atmosphere. And all doors are double doors…you have to close the one
behind you in order to be able to open the next one.

So, in we went…they gave us a brief explanation of how the reactor works…
I wasn’t listening, my head was consumed by the surroundings.
The showed us the control center. It’s where the technicians control the reactor. In it is a window that looks
toward the pool, and inside the pool is the reactor itself. We went inside the room where the pool is.
The pool is about 9 meters deep. On the surface you could see a slight movement of the liquid (in this case heavy water).
Then when you look at the deep end of the pool you see it. The reactor. Lot’s of rods, tubes, and cherenkov blue. WOW.
I felt the immense urge to throw myself into the pool and swim towards this glow. I could not look away. Think a ball of blue neon.
Just beautiful. Cherenkov blue baby.

Here are some photos of the construction of the reactor.

Check out Spero’s company: Lasertools