Atomic Golf Ball (Mar, 1951)
Filed under: Sports — @ 10:48 pm
Source: Mechanix Illustrated ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Mar, 1951
| Buy on Ebay
Tags: golf
Source: Mechanix Illustrated ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Mar, 1951
| Buy on Ebay
Tags: golf
Atomic Golf Ball
IT may not be world-shattering news, but golfers will welcome one of the newest atomic developments once it emerges from the experimental stage. It’s a golf ball that can’t get lost. Minute quantities of radioactive materials are embedded under the cover of the ball so that if you carry a portable Geiger counter, you can locate it even in dense woods. When you’re getting close to the correct location, you’ll know by the signals on your headphones.
Below, Dr. William L. Davidson the inventor lets Lawson Little, famous golf pro, left, hear the tell-tale clicks. At the right, he gives the fairer sex a chance to marvel at modern science.
We are currently developing another new golf ball that, upon landing, releases a dense cloud of chlorine gas, ensuring you’ll be able to find it easily!
Comment by ann. — June 29, 2008 @ 1:42 am
How about putting a miniature atomic bomb into it, as well as neuron detectors everywhere? That way you could quickly detect it’s position.
Comment by Casandro — June 29, 2008 @ 3:23 am
“…he gives the fairer sex a chance to marvel at modern science.”
Uh, none of you are pregnant, are you?
Comment by rsterling78 — June 29, 2008 @ 5:59 am
The amount and type of radioactivity was so low as to be stopped by human skin. Much in the same way that the radioactive sources in smoke detectors produce only low energy alpha rays.
Comment by JMyint — June 29, 2008 @ 7:10 am
That it’s penetrating through the golf ball’s “cover” and that you can detect it “in dense woods” with 1950’s era geiger-counters tells me that it is most definitely not alpha and probably not beta radiation. I think this is probably a very mild gamma source. Alpha wouldn’t even get through the plastic, and beta would be stopped by almost any amount of material beyond nothing.
It’s probably not dangerous just sitting there, unless you were around it for a very long time, got a lot of them together, had it very close to your skin for prolonged periods, or it got burned, melted, or somehow ingested.
Comment by Deth — June 29, 2008 @ 12:23 pm
As soon as there are a bunch of other golf balls on the fairway (or in the rough), your Geiger Counter detects them all.
So much for that idea.
Comment by Rick Auricchio — June 29, 2008 @ 12:29 pm
Wasn’t there a alternative rock band called Atomic Golf Ball?
Comment by Torgo — June 30, 2008 @ 5:47 pm
That post is my argument against eating lead paint.
Comment by Firebrand38 — April 30, 2009 @ 11:42 am
Amazing the useless crap you can generate using Babelfish… braindamage indeed!
Alan
Comment by Al — April 30, 2009 @ 12:28 pm
Bad ideas never seem to go away, they just get recycled http://www.orau.org/PTP/collec.....fballs.htm
Comment by Nick Mondeo — August 20, 2009 @ 1:25 pm