Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Plutonium pellet

Plutonium pellet
Voting period ends on 28 Jul 2010 at 05:08:24 (UTC)
 * Reason:Access to Plutonium is virtually non-existent, it's so radioactive a pellet as shown gets red hot under it's own energy. The technical limitations, danger and impossible to access samples of this element would mean we could probably forgive some of the technical flaws, namely quite a bit of noise. This provides extensive EV for the articles it is in. We do have another photo of these pellets, but it's under the minimum size and has a DOF issue. This image is unique since it clearly illustrates the heat and light the element emits on its own being a dark shot.
 * Articles in which this image appears:Plutonium-238, Plutonium, Plutonium(IV) oxide, Isotopes of plutonium
 * FP category for this image:Featured pictures/Sciences/Materials science
 * Creator:United States Department of Energy


 * Support as nominator --— raeky ( talk 05:08, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Support It might benefit from some mild editing to denoise, but this is an astounding image of something which it's very unlikely any of the readers will ever see in person. Remember, kids: When a substance literally glowing from radioactivity, that glow means "danger!" Adam Cuerden (talk) 11:35, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Uploaded Edit: Attempted the mild editing mentioned above. It was hard to decide exactly how much noise to remove, so I purposely left some noise, so that it still seems real.  Too much denoising, and the texture gets wiped out.  I've also removed an insane amount of dust spots and one smudge.  The edit is also a bit brighter and a bit blurry, but that was a side effect of the denoiser.  I couldn't really sharpen it decently, so I left it alone. --Aiyizo (talk) 19:52, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Support Either --Aiyizo (talk) 19:52, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Support Edit 1 I don’t get to see plutonium 238 every day. I saw a picture like this a long time ago and always thought it fascinating. Very nice find. Greg L (talk) 21:02, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Question How big is this pellet? The light makes it somewhat difficult to tell.  Spencer T♦ C 23:49, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed, there's a real lack of scale here. J Milburn (talk) 00:13, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose and Comment I retracted my “support” vote. Just because the DOE provides a über-oversampled image (3200 pixels across) is no reason for it to magically circumvent our minimum resolution requirement, IMO. There is a much sharper image on Wikipedia, shown at right. And, though sharper, it too has out-of-focus areas because of DOF issues. Moreover, at 609 pixels wide, it doesn’t have enough resolution to meet our minimums. This particular nomination doesn’t meet FPC minimums because it is fuzzy at any size larger than this 260-pixel thumbnail. One should be able to fill a 1000-pixel-width window (at minimum) with sharpnes. The only possible exception are for technological brick walls like photos of auroras from space, or some scanning electron microscope images of really small things (or an amazing picture of a light wave). But these images are simple, earth-bound, shirt-sleeve environment shots, so the only excuse is they were shot with something like a Sony Mavica that wrote to a floppy disk.  Greg L (talk) 00:37, 20 July 2010 (UTC) P.S. I was going to volunteer to add a legend-like scale (the sort you see on maps). Of course, that would have required knowledge of this thing’s size. That’s when I went to the DOE site and that, in turn, sensitized me to the focus and oversampling issues.  Greg L (talk) 02:05, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I think your misunderstanding the nature of this material, it's DEFINITELY NOT "shirt sleeve" environment, it's radiation suit, and glove box only environment. These pellets are not mass produced or readily available, they're EXTREMELY expensive and outside of very tightly controlled government facilities would never exist. The nominated photograph is shot in the dark under it's own light, i.e. it's glowing red hot from it's own radiation decay energy. Any element that gets so hot it causes it's self to glow (or in the case of it's metal form actually catch fire) isn't something one can find pictures of every day. Getting a better image of this element could be considered virtually impossible, i.e. like getting better pictures of the surface of the moon. Thus it should be treated differently then other images. — raeky ( talk 02:22, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I think you would be surprised by what I know about my fissile materials and other radioisotopes from U-235 on up. Pu-238 is an alpha emitter (so too is the bomb-grade Pu-239). Alpha particles can be stopped by paper. Indeed, you don’t want to inhale the stuff. But when they brought the 5kg Pu-239 core to New Mexico for the Trinity shot, one of the physicists held it in his hand. It was even slightly warm because of the slight alpha radiation it was emitting. He blanched. If this Pu-238 cylinder wasn’t so hot, it too could be held in one’s hand after it was cleaned of loose particles. It being hot and being an alpha emitter is not the same sort of fundamental limitation I am talking about (like an aurora from space) where we must make exceptions for resolution and sharpness. As for your statement Any element that gets so hot it causes it's self to glow (or in the case of it's metal form actually catch fire) isn't something one can find pictures of every day: Well, that’s exactly my feelings and is almost exactly what I wrote when I first voted “support ”. But I later struck that vote because of this really bad lack of sharpness. Even though it is way-cool, it is simply not, IMO, of “high technical standard”, as required of FP pictures. The rarity of a government-supplied thing like this and the difficulty of getting pictures like this is really more of a non-free, fair-use argument if there happen to have been a copyright issue than it is a basis for excusing poor focus. Sorry; that’s my reasoning. Let’s see how others feel. Greg L (talk) 05:03, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
 * A little side note. The first pure-fission bombs needed “tamper”, which was a dense metal surrounding the plutonium pit to keep it inertially confined for a millionth of a second. The tamper comprised two hemispheres that created a ball about as big as a bowling ball, with a soft ball-size pocket in the center where the plutonium pit goes. One of the first tampers they had fabricated for Trinity was a gold one. Then they changed to a depleted uranium one. The scientists worked in wooden shacks at that time. Oppenheimer used one of the two hemispheres of the gold tamper as a door stop for the remainder of the project. Greg L (talk) 05:21, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose. I'm feeling what Greg is saying here. This may be the best we have, and it may be very difficult to reproduce, but that does not mean that we should feature it. J Milburn (talk) 11:10, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Same reasons as above. Jfitch (talk) 08:08, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose - This is one of those many subjects/articles where a FP is just not feasible. Cacophony (talk) 07:20, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

--Makeemlighter (talk) 04:44, 28 July 2010 (UTC)