[ RadSafe ] Down Memory Lane #1

[Dan W McCarn]

Dan W. McCarn, Geologist; 3118 Pebble Lake Drive; Sugar Land, TX 77479; USA
mccarn at unileoben.ac.at           HotGreenChile at gmail.com
UConcentrate at gmail.com

Hello -

I was digging through some old photos the other day when I found these two
gems that I thought I'd share with the RadSafe community.  Please note the
names / signatures on the bottom of the attached photos of radium source
certificates: Marie Curie & Hans Geiger...

The "finger" belongs to "Uncle" Alexander Rimsky-Korsakov, the retired
Director General of the Khlopin Radium Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Uncle Alex was giving me a tour around the old private residence of the
Director General.  The radiochemistry lab itself is in the connecting
building.  According to Uncle Alex, apparently it was normal for the DG to
marry his laboratory assistant who would first "Stir the Radium" and then
"Stir the Borscht", then the radium, then the borscht, etc.  until the
radium was well stirred into the borscht.

Uncle Alex is an accomplished artist.  The following website contains a few
examples of his graphic art.

http://www.valentina.net/ARK/ark.html

A different version of the composition "New World" was given to me by Uncle
Alex but with the name "Dark Matter Revealed".

I first met Uncle Alex in 1980 at the IAEA.  When I asked him if he was the
son of the composer, he answered, "I'm not that old!  I'm the grandson!"

My best on this Memorial Day!

Dan ii


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