liquidweaver

Gilded, you got me. Thanks for the correction. I'm rather new at this stuff.

Do you have any idea how big a radium+ beryllium source you would need to produce anything like 10^9 neutrons a second? Yes. Do you have any idea how little Au197 you could make with 10^9 neutrons a second? Yes. My guess is that you don't, because if you knew what you were talking about you wouldn't think Ra and Po were proton sources. You guessed wrong; and Ra and Po decay plenty alpha radiation. What isotopes are you referring to? And it doesn't matter anyways - don't take my post so seriously - just because the methods are plausible doesn't mean they are practical. There is more than a slight undertone of sarcasm in my original post, which you missed.

If you are curious, there are 2 methods in which a normal person (albeit pretty geeky) could generate measurable amounts of Au-197 from Hg-196. 1.) Grab a good proton emitter like Polonium or Radium, and mix it up in a blender with heap of a low-z element, like Beryllium or Lithium. You might get up to 1x10^9 neutrons per second if mixed right (although you'll prolly want to throw away the blender, it will become activated and very unsuitable for making smoothies afterwards) 2.) You could purchase a bar of Californium-252, which throws out neutrons all by it's lonesome. For around $25k, you get a little bar with a half life of about two and a half years a that will emit a mean amount of 1x10^8 neutrons per second. Not cheap, but feasible. I'm sure there are some I haven't thought of, but that ought to get you started. I supposed you could also open a ton of smoke detectors and take out the Americium and mix it into a matrix with lithium (like 2 above), but that would probably take a long time. Have fun, and always remember - for shielding, cover your high-z lead shield with a good beta absorber (like wood). Cheers.