Tau

5/17/2019 5:58:36 PM

It seems like you need a lot of high energy particles to make that blue light, but I also remember you could see that same glow at NCSUs reactor which isn’t that radioactive we were told...

5/17/2019 10:32:56 PM

Its more complicated than I thought.

https://www.thoughtco.com/blue-reactor-water-cherenkov-radiation-4037677

Tldr the particles are faster than light in the medium whick gives off a light shockwave. These waves have higher frequency than normal light in the medium so it appears blue to our eye.

5/18/2019 8:05:56 AM

There's Cherenkov radiation and then there's plan old air ionization.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionized-air_glow#Ionized_air_glow_vs_Cherenkov_radiation

5/20/2019 10:10:27 AM

Ah, so it's virtually impossible in air. Thanks for clarifying that.

5/20/2019 10:53:06 AM

https://reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/bqvu6p/how_accurate_is_the_chernobyl_miniseries_on_hbo/

Some people discussing the show here

5/20/2019 6:33:35 PM

Episode 3 was good.

The bodies consistently decomposing episode to episode and scene to scene was pretty gruesome.

5/21/2019 1:41:16 PM

Crazy how the firefighters and workers that were initially exposed went from looking only slightly burned and otherwise in relatively good health to a complete lump of flesh in like a day, but that's exactly what the nuclear scientist said would happen.

[Edited on May 21, 2019 at 2:15 PM. Reason : ]

5/21/2019 2:15:18 PM

Remember that reporter that was poisoned with radiation? It came from a very small piece of metal that couldn't have been nearly as radioactive as the stuff those first responders were exposed to. I couldn't imagine a worse death.

5/21/2019 3:11:34 PM

Really curious how this pregnancy thing goes.

She went from "don't touch him" to hugging, holding his hand, sitting with him, etc REALLY fast. Seemed crazy enough for a non-pregnant person.

5/21/2019 3:23:58 PM

Given the partitioning of information, the wife probably just figured he was burned by fire. It also portrays a dangerous aspect of radiation in that it's invisible and easy to discount if you don't know what you're up against.

5/21/2019 4:02:54 PM

I also find it fascinating that those firefighters and control center workers were so irradiated that they were a danger to others.

5/22/2019 8:00:05 AM

I was wondering about that. Maybe there's still radioactive dust in their lungs and absorbed into their fluids.

5/22/2019 9:57:58 AM

they were so close to the exposed reactor that they likely had been bombarded by neutrons and had radionuclides inside their body.

5/22/2019 12:09:52 PM

Thank you, HBO. This is a fantastic miniseries. Just what I needed after GOT got debacled.

5/26/2019 11:51:25 AM

https://youtu.be/rUeHPCYtWYQ

Podcast really expands on the episodes.

5/26/2019 1:31:41 PM

Found it about an hour ago... already on ep 3 podcast.

Feed me more!

5/26/2019 2:01:20 PM

Quote :

"Chillnobyl: watching an episode of Chernobyl with a special someone then clinging to one another afterwards at the stark realization of how fragile and expendable we all are and the sheer razors edge that humanity exists on as we carelessly tamper with the forces of nature"

- @mattoswaltVA

5/27/2019 10:34:12 PM

lol at the miners

Poor doggies

Really enjoying this show. The scenes on the roof were great and intense.

5/28/2019 8:13:34 AM

Barry Keoghan annoys me because he does the same dumb blank face acting in every role he has

5/28/2019 8:42:17 AM

Just when I thought this show couldn't get any more depressing they go and have an entire subplot dedicated to killing dogs and cats. Then cap it off with a widowed mother losing her baby four hours after it is born.

5/28/2019 8:59:54 AM

Quote :

"the show seems to lay it on really thick how grossly incompetent the plant operators and leadership through all levels of government in Russia at the time were. It seemed like they had absolutely no emergency plan, no contact lists, no chain of command, it seems like they're actively fighting getting expert opinions on what was supposed to happened."

It seems to get lost on a lot of people (maybe younger generations I guess?) that the USSR spent the 80s barely hanging on, on the verge of collapse for basically the entire decade.

5/28/2019 9:57:03 AM

Quote :

"Just when I thought this show couldn't get any more depressing they go and have an entire subplot dedicated to killing dogs and cats. Then cap it off with a widowed mother losing her baby four hours after it is born."

Exactly. Felt like I needed to drink Vodka along with the soldiers after that. Geez. Shooting dogs and cats wasn't enough, had to kill a litter of puppies just to really make it hurt.

5/28/2019 1:46:48 PM

I didn't think that was a litter of puppies - I took it to be the animals feasting on a human corpse.

5/28/2019 2:05:14 PM

Oh I thought based on the small yips and the size of the dogs it was a litter of puppies, but maybe I was mentally making it sadder haha.

5/28/2019 2:17:44 PM

It was a litter of puppies.

5/28/2019 2:47:40 PM

I thought it was puppies too. If they were hungry enough to be feeding on a human corpse they would have been thinner and the mother probably would have been more aggressive.

5/28/2019 5:16:22 PM

Wow the reviewers don't seem to like this series too much.

5/29/2019 6:27:39 AM

Quote :

" It seems to get lost on a lot of people (maybe younger generations I guess?) that the USSR spent the 80s barely hanging on, on the verge of collapse for basically the entire decade."

The Cold War is a bit of a foreign land to me, and I'm 36. People 10 years younger than me...I think the Soviet Union might as well be Nazi Germany to them as far as something relatable to modern times. Remember watching President Bush's funeral, and former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney talking about the fall of the Soviet Union and says "this was the most important political event of the 20th century". I understand what Mulroney was saying and get the reasoning, but it's not viewed that way at all by most people, it's an afterthought now.

I remember elementary grade school-level social studies textbooks where they'd touch on the Soviets a bit, and I knew the maps changed because I loved geography. I have no memory of the downfall at all which would've been when I was 8, which you'd think in an era of 24/7 news like we have now, can you imagine how that would've gone? Would make a great movie...

[Edited on May 29, 2019 at 9:17 AM. Reason : /]

5/29/2019 9:01:21 AM

^^Do you mean like professional critics don't like it? Because it is currently the highest rated series of all time on IMDB. Which is kind of weird since it has only had 4 episodes, but still.

5/29/2019 9:23:22 AM

Quote :

"People 10 years younger than me...I think the Soviet Union might as well be Nazi Germany to them as far as something relatable to modern times"

Interesting to mention both, because the long lasting, and far reaching, impacts of both of those countries shaped much of the world over the last 60 years and continue to do so.

5/29/2019 10:17:58 AM

Nazi Germany has had little lasting impact (on a state level, their scientists and their research some of which was state-funded it's entirely different). It's ironic in hindsight so much time has been paid attention to a state and its philosophy that was around for maybe 20 years, a blink of the eye in terms of political history. It's just the geopolitical order of the world has been in a post-World War II state for 75 years, so everyone focuses on World War II. No one talks about the post-World War I power structure because the post-World War I power structure was overthrown almost immediately. The global power structure is changing now and has been for a decade or two, but without a conflict to more drive things to a final conclusion, it's more abstract and hard to pin things down. The Soviets in contrast had a much longer influence and unlike Nazi Germany projected power globally (although in the 1940s Germans like most Europeans thought the world stopped at Europe), which still ended in the '80s.

[Edited on May 29, 2019 at 1:16 PM. Reason : /]

5/29/2019 1:10:57 PM

Let's stay on topic

5/29/2019 2:07:59 PM

Quote :

"Wow the reviewers don't seem to like this series too much."

They are morons, or pedants.

5/29/2019 2:27:44 PM

The New York Times review has some valid concerns. I don't think some of it is totally fair. For instance, Boris does come off as a stereotypical Russian strongman at first, but reveals some depth of character later. They said in reality, white smoke came out of the reactor. That sounds less effective and harder to do from an effects standpoint, plus who cares. The biggest criticism is how Emily Watson's character is all over the place. I think most 20 to 30 somethings who watch the show have the critical thinking skills to know when they dramatized a particular part of the show and if you listen to the podcast, they are very aware of how they altered the story. If anything, I would say the last episode was too depressing for being depressing sake. Pretty sure the director was attempting to channel Von Trier (especially since some of the actors have worked with him). No one can be as effectively depressing as that.

5/30/2019 11:58:27 AM

Why isn't Episode 4 on demand yet?!

5/31/2019 11:55:51 AM

https://www.icefilms.info/ip.php?v=270552&

5/31/2019 12:42:35 PM

^^ I watched it on demand Monday. HBO Go

5/31/2019 2:10:02 PM

It showed up today on Spectrum. The other episodes were available the moment they aired.

6/1/2019 12:19:43 AM

even the director said he couldn't show everyone - that he only focused on one character and rolled a lot of deeds done by others IRL into that one character - Emily Watson's character. I'm ok with it.

6/1/2019 6:44:08 AM

Quote :

"There's that one guy with the beard that appears to play every Russian character ever. He's in Space Cowboys as the Russian general. He's in Snatch as Boris the Blade."

That's Rade Šerbedžija, and he's Croatian.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rade_Šerbedžija

6/2/2019 12:20:13 PM

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/02/arts/television/chernobyl-hbo.html

Wait, we are the only people who didn't like it? Get the science guy in here! He too, thought the radiation was Cherenkov radiation.

That original review was used as a conduit to declare the NYT socialist sympathizers. NYT probably should have doubled down because of this.

https://thefederalist.com/2019/05/30/hbos-chernobyl-indicts-soviet-socialism-establishment-reviews-downplay/

Another interesting fact, the creator of the show was roommates with and hates (like everyone) Ted Cruz.

6/2/2019 6:09:53 PM

I like that they seem to think a capitalist system wouldn't have many of the same issues dealing with a disaster like this. With the difference being the misinformation and bureaucracy coming from the corporate side vs., and in conjunction with the government side.

6/2/2019 11:13:20 PM

Okay so my only real complaint on this show was that it didn't show what happened leading up to the explosion. Last night's episode showed all of that. I was incorrect in my earlier posts btw, it was Dyatlov that was such a hardass about everything. Akimov did his best to remedy the situation.

So I wonder how much of Dyatlov acting like that was just him in general being an intimidating asshole, and how much of it was from pressure from above to complete the test? Yes he wanted that promotion, but ultimately the test would have still happened in the future if he had aborted due to safety concerns. He had to know how bad things were getting real time and the lead scientist made it seem like there were multiple different things that could have been done to stop the explosion.

Also, man those final shots of the actual people who were involved were haunting. Especially that one guy who was near the reactor when it exploded. It said that his body was never recovered and will likely be forever entombed under the remnants of Reactor #4. Surprising, however, that the three guys who trudged through the water in episode 2 all lived, and two of them are still alive today.

6/4/2019 9:23:42 AM

So one big difference here, and I'm not sure why they changed it, but Legasov(sp?) never revealed state secrets during his testimony. He was a party man through and through.

And it is crazy that the firefighter's clothing is still radioactive - that gave me cold chills.

6/4/2019 11:49:38 AM

^Okay so that makes more sense as to why he killed himself. I figured that given his testimony, he did everything he could to get the truth out, so ultimately he shouldn't have a guilty conscience. If in actuality he didn't do that, he would be living with the guilt for the next year.

EDIT: I found this album on imgur that details the happenings at Chernobyl from it's initial construction, through the accident and to modern day: https://imgur.com/a/TwY6q . WARNING: There are some graphic images of people with severe radiation burns in this gallery.

Very interesting seeing the actual people who were involved. The show did a really good recreation of a lot of it, down to the clothes that they were wearing at the trial (Dyatlov's yellow/brown suit). The sheer number of equipment, bodies (humans and pets), and other random things that are buried and encased in concrete around there must be crazy. If humans are still around in thousands of years when it is safe to live there again, it would be interesting to dig some of that equipment up.

[Edited on June 4, 2019 at 12:37 PM. Reason : ]

6/4/2019 12:09:33 PM

^^ The last podcast episode hits on that point and the reasons for using him to tell the panel about the flaw. Namely, they wanted to use someone that the viewers knew and cared about rather than a nameless new lawyer/witness

6/4/2019 1:34:53 PM

According to the imgur gallery captions, Legasov did reveal the state secrets on the power plant construction? His wiki page is lacking on the details though, all it says is that he gave an in depth analysis.

Quote :

"Legasov took a very strong stance against the official story that the plant's staff were entirely to blame. His resistance ruined his career. With his reputation in tatters, his health ravaged by the radiation he absorbed at Chernobyl, his disillusionment with his country’s unwillingness to focus more on safety, and feeling the weight of so many dead on his shoulders, he hanged himself on the second anniversary of the disaster - the day after his proposal for a reformed Soviet scientific community was rejected."

6/4/2019 3:53:30 PM

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/06/04/putins-media-struggle-to-deal-with-hbos-chernobyl-a65866

Quote :

"Russia’s NTV channel has already announced that it is shooting its own “Chernobyl” series based on the premise that the CIA sent an agent to the Chernobyl zone to carry out acts of sabotage. As justification for the story, the film’s director, Alexei Muradov, cited fringe conspiracy theorists: “One theory holds that Americans had infiltrated the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and many historians do not deny that, on the day of the explosion, an agent of the enemy’s intelligence services was present at the station."

OKAY

6/6/2019 1:33:20 PM

i mean if it's got good production value i'd watch that, sounds good

6/6/2019 1:41:32 PM