Xenon Quotes

Xenon? What kind of name is that?” – Nick “The only kind I answer to.” – Xenon “Don’t eat the help, X. We need him.” – Caleb

She pulls a spare head from beneath a pile of shoes and raises it by the hair. It looks like one of those cheap, blue heads that botwhores keep for lonely sci-fi freaks who want to pretend they’re fucking the queen of Xenon.

The deep space transport uses a new type of propulsion system to send astronauts through space, called solar electric propulsion. The huge solar panels capture sunlight and convert it to electricity. This is used to strip away the electrons from a gas (like xenon), creating ions. An electric field then shoots these charged ions out one end of the engine, creating thrust. Unlike chemical engines, which can only fire for a few minutes, ion engines can slowly accelerate for months or even years.

Mercury.” Xenon folded her hands over her eyes in despair. “You . . . you can’t throw pickles on the king’s table. Not the pickles from the turkey sandwich that the king’s servants also brought you. You just can’t. Not in front of the actual king.” Jonas

O. Hahn and F. Strassmann have discovered a new type of nuclear reaction, the splitting into two smaller nuclei of the nuclei of uranium and thorium under neutron bombardment. Thus they demonstrated the production of nuclei of barium, lanthanum, strontium, yttrium, and, more recently, of xenon and caesium. It can be shown by simple considerations that this type of nuclear reaction may be described in an essentially classical way like the fission of a liquid drop, and that the fission products must fly apart with kinetic energies of the order of hundred million electron-volts each.

He was wise in the ways of pain. He had to be, for he felt none. When the Xenons put electrodes to his testicles, he was vastly entertained by the pretty lights. When the Ylls fed firewasps into his nostrils and other body orifices the resultant rainbows pleased him. And when later they regressed to simple disjointments and eviscerations, he noted with interest the deepening orchid hues that stood for irreversible harm. "This time?" he asked the boditech when his scouter had torn him from the Ylls. "No," said the boditech. "When?" There was no answer. "You're a girl in there, aren't you? A human girl?" "Well, yes and no," said the boditech. "Sleep now." He had no choice. - 'Painwise

Either way, even 30MWt is near-as-makes-no-difference a complete shutdown and not even enough energy to power the water pumps. At such a low power, an atomic process of ‘poisoning’ the reactor begins - a release of the isotope xenon135, which absorbs and seriously inhibits the fission reaction - and the test was over before it began. Had this massive drop in power never happened, the test would have proceeded without incident and the RBMK’s dangerous shortcomings may never have come to light. Crucially, however, the man in charge of the test, 55-year-old Deputy-Chief Engineer Anatoly Dyatlov, did not stop.

I understand,” I say. I head back toward the airlock. “You observe, question?” Rocky asks. He watched me sleep, so it’s only fair he offer to let me watch him. I’m sure Earth scientists would jump all over the place to learn anything about what an Eridian sleeping looks like. But I finally have time to do some deep analysis of xenonite and I’m just dying to know how xenon bonds with other elements. If I can get any of my lab equipment to work in zero g, that is. “Not necessary.” “You observe, question?” he asks again. “No.” “Observe.” “You want me to observe you sleep?” “Yes. Want want want.” Through unspoken agreement, a tripled word means extreme emphasis.

I understand,” I say. I head back toward the airlock. “You observe, question?” Rocky asks. He watched me sleep, so it’s only fair he offer to let me watch him. I’m sure Earth scientists would jump all over the place to learn anything about what an Eridian sleeping looks like. But I finally have time to do some deep analysis of xenonite and I’m just dying to know how xenon bonds with other elements. If I can get any of my lab equipment to work in zero g, that is. “Not necessary.” “You observe, question?” he asks again. “No.” “Observe.” “You want me to observe you sleep?” “Yes. Want want want.” Through unspoken agreement, a tripled word means extreme emphasis.

I understand,” I say. I head back toward the airlock. “You observe, question?” Rocky asks. He watched me sleep, so it’s only fair he offer to let me watch him. I’m sure Earth scientists would jump all over the place to learn anything about what an Eridian sleeping looks like. But I finally have time to do some deep analysis of xenonite and I’m just dying to know how xenon bonds with other elements. If I can get any of my lab equipment to work in zero g, that is. “Not necessary.” “You observe, question?” he asks again. “No.” “Observe.” “You want me to observe you sleep?” “Yes. Want want want.” Through unspoken agreement, a tripled word means extreme emphasis.

By 01:00, after around half an hour, the pair had succeeded in increasing the power to 200MWt by retracting about half of the control rods, but that was as high as it would go - nowhere near the intended 700MWt. Xenon poisoning had already taken its toll, seriously reducing the fuel’s reactivity. Russian safety regulations have since changed to require that an RBMK reactor be kept at a minimum of 700MWt during normal operation because of thermal-hydraulic instability at reduced power. Knowing 200MWt was still far too low to perform the test, they overrode additional automatic systems and manually raised still more control rods to compensate for the poisoning effect.108 At the same time, they connected all 8 main circulating pumps and increased the flow of coolant into the core, up to around 60,000 tons per hour.109 This volume of water was another violation of safety regulations, since very high water flow could lead to cavitation in the pipes. Increased coolant levels meant less steam, which soon caused the turbine speeds to drop. To counteract negative reactivity from all the extra coolant water, the operators withdrew most of the few control rods still inside the reactor, until the equivalent of only 8 fully inserted rods remained.110 The normal absolute minimum allowed at the time was 15, which increased to 30 after the accident.111

For not all atoms are wiggle-away; xenon, for example, is heavy and slow. It would make a nicely combustibel atmosphere, of glowing lavender hue, and would make sound possible, albeit slow, so everyone's voice would drop several octaves and everyone would sound like walruses. And xenon is an anesthetic, so inhabitants would be blithe and amenable to dentistry.

Wären Menschen chemische Elemente, dann wäre Dad ein Edelgas, vielleicht Xenon oder Radon. Er reagierte nur, wenn er dazu gezwungen wurde, und ging keinerlei Bindung ein. Von Cecile abgesehen. Mit meiner Stiefmutter hatte er in der Reaktionsgeschwindigkeit eines freien Radikals angebandelt, aber das war eine andere Geschichte.

I murmured the nesting order to myself, working outwards: uranium, zirconium, iron, copper, bentonite, gneiss, granite . . . I think back to the beginning of my journeys in the underland, and to the beginning of time, down in the dark-matter laboratory at Boulby Mine. At Boulby they encased xenon in lead in copper in iron in halite in hundreds of yards of rock in order to see back to the birth of the universe. At Onkalo they encased uranium in zirconium in iron in copper in bentonite in hundreds of yards of rock in order to keep the future safe from the present.

Lord Xenon rubbed at his chest and stared at the cauldron. “This is getting absurd.” “It’s getting absurd?” Lord Otto growled. “It passed absurd two days ago. We’ve entered What the Fuck Land.” I choked on a laugh.

Xenon poisoning—with which it’s difficult to operate a reactor—started increasing. Let’s avoid giving technical details and just say that this was the first step into the embrace of the accident.