[time-nuts] Thinking outside the box a super reference

Richard (Rick) Karlquist richard at karlquist.com
Sat Nov 5 14:38:58 UTC 2016



On 11/5/2016 12:18 AM, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:
> --------
> In message <768ee5a7-1c53-06cf-cf36-ec75e290177e at karlquist.com>, "Richard (Rick) Karlquist" w
> rites:
>
>> Reminds me of an interesting Jack Kusters story.
>> There was some customer who was having problems with
>> his atomic clocks being noisy (I don't remember exactly
>> the story) but the bottom line was that they determined
>> it was because of helium contamination.
>
> How would helium make his clocks noisy ?
>
> Isn't it more likely that it was the alphas from the
> radon decay that did it by their charge ?

I probably am not remembering the story exactly, but
I do definitely remember it had to do with unexplained
helium, which they tried to blame Kusters company for.
He said there was a simple explanation, namely radon
gas emitting alpha particles that turn into helium
and helium can diffuse into "sealed" containers.
He basically told them that if they dropped the issue,
it wouldn't be necessary for him to publicize the fact
that their plant was full of radon.  It was really
funny when Jack himself told it.

Rick




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