So I just saw the YouTube video someone posted that showed nuclear reactors starting up, and the first thing I noticed was that they all glowed a very bright, pretty blue. I’m probably an idiot, but I was honestly expecting green, because of many years of dramatized depictions in popular media.
These are probably dumb questions, but:
- Why is it blue? As in, what’s actually glowing in there, and why do we see it that way?
and
- Why do all the movies and comic books and video games go with green instead? Where did that come from?
Tritium glows bright green and is used in a lot of consumer products, specifically gun sights and watches. Uranium glass also glows bright green.
Maybe people think radioactive things glow green because… they often do glow green.