Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Laboratory redux

An excerpt from A. C. Gilbert's autobiography:
The Man Who Lives In Paradise...

The most spectacular of our new educational toys was the Gilbert Atomic Energy Laboratory. This was a top job, the result of much experimentation and hard work. We were unofficially encouraged by the government, who thought that our set would aid in public understanding of atomic energy and stress its constructive side. We had the great help of some of the country's best nuclear physicists and worked closely with M.I.T. in it's development.

There was nothing phony about our Atomic Energy laboratory. It was genuine, and it was also safe. We used radioactive materials in the set, but none that might conceivably prove dangerous. There was a Geiger-Mueller Counter. It was accurate; a carefully designed and manufactured instrument that could actually be used in prospecting for radioactive materials. The Atomic Energy lab also contained a cloud chamber in which the paths of alpha particles traveling at 12,000 miles a second could be seen; a spinthariscope showing the results of radioactive disintegration on a fluorescent screen; an electroscope that measured the radioactivity of different substances.

It caused quite a sensation at the Toy Fair and received a great deal of publicity. But there were difficulties. It had to be priced very high--$50.00--and even at that price we managed to lose a little money on every one sold. The Atomic Energy Lab was also the most thoroughly scientific toy we had ever produced, and only boys with a great deal of education could understand it. It was not suitable for the same age groups as our simpler chemistry and microscope sets, for instance, and you could not manufacture such a thing as a beginner's atomic energy lab. So we had to drop this wonderful new addition to our line of educational toys--and toy has never seemed to me to be the right word to apply to such things. We adapted some of its features so that they could be added to our largest chemistry set--using the spinthariscope, some radioactive ore, and the atomic energy manual.

The Man Who Lives In Paradise

by

A.C. Gilbert

ISBN-10: 0911581200
ISBN-13: 978-0911581201

Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Laboratory [Wikipedia]


A. C. Gilbert "U-238 Atomic Energy Lab"

Physics toy contest reminder #1

Just a reminder that May 26th is the closing date for the American Physical Society's Physics Central's Toy Box Physics Video Contest.

Information

Science toys

Never too old to have some fun with science toys.

"Science toys"

Tim Rowett is an avid collector of science-related toys. Robert P Crease and son drop in to play with them.

by

Robert P Crease

January 5th, 2009

physicsworld.com

"I have a low boredom threshold," Tim Rowett explains, ushering in my son Alex and me. Rowett is a jovial, professorish-looking man with wire-rimmed glasses and a short, white beard. Alex and I have gone to his flat in Twickenham, on the edge of London, to see his collection of fun stuff — jokes, games, puzzles and other toys related to science. When I ask what they have in common, Rowett has a ready, if not illuminating, answer: "They're just things that make people go 'Wow!'."

The how of the wow

During my visit, Rowett hands Alex a pair of inverse goggles, which turn your field of vision upside down. While my son gets to grips with those, I look round Rowett's small, three-room flat. At first glance, it seems like the lost-and-found corner of a 1950s airport. One room has metal racks stacked to the ceiling with old-fashioned, cloth-covered valises. Another has shelves crammed with books, with a jumble of other objects strewn across the mantelpiece, piano and other flat surfaces.

Many people collect toys of one kind or another, but Rowett is different on three counts. First, he has a lot — 18,000 toys in fact. Second, he has managed to eke a living out of them, entertaining children until his retirement in 1996, then selling toys over the Web [ Grand Illusions ]. Third, while most of us focus our fascination on a particular kind of amusement — magnetic toys, optical illusions or puzzles — Rowett is equally interested in each kind. He will discuss a simple toy made of clothes pegs — its inventor, variants and how these evolved over time — with the same passion that he discusses complex perceptual-trick devices made of arrays of lenses.

While Alex bumps about in his goggles, I manage to elicit some of Rowett's own story out of him as he shows me his toys. He was born in Farnham in 1941, and his father was in the Royal Signal Corps and then the clergy. Rowett studied engineering at King's College, London, but kept failing, eventually graduating in six rather than three years. "I was easily distracted," he shrugs. Rowett found short-lived employment as an engineer, followed by odd jobs ranging from selling central heating (nine months) to peddling encyclopedias (three days).

All along, he loved entertaining children as a hobby. But it took him a while to discover his talent: his magic tricks never met the demands of his audience, and he did not have the personality for puppets. One day in the early 1970s, he brought to a party a toy dog equipped with a simple electroacoustic switch. "When you called, it went waggle waggle waggle, walk walk walk," Rowett explains. "The kids were all over it. I had discovered that they don’t need high technology, they want things they can touch. That's how I started."

Alex, still wearing the inverse goggles, asks us to throw him a pen. He misses a few times and goes back to practising. Meanwhile, Rowett shows me his Klein bottle used to store fennel seeds; a baton-sized, battery-powered van de Graaff generator able to make a sheet of silver Mylar float; and a tiny Stirling engine: "Look at that — chug, chug, chug — it runs on the heat of your hand!"

Rowett cross-catalogues everything, and reels off a list: "Topological toys, string-climbing toys, disentanglement toys, nothing novelties, kaleidoscopes, spectacles, magnetic toys, rattlebacks, jigsaws, literary novelties, light sticks, geophysical toys, mirror toys, water siphons, spinners, soap bubbles, electroacoustic switches, aroma games, optical scopes…" On and on he goes, with dozens of overlapping categories.

We wander into the kitchen, which is another wonderland. It has pitchers that will not pour unless you know which holes to cover with your fingers, spoons that bend when inserted in hot liquid and a can of "primordial soup" from Fermilab ("Ingredients: quarks, force-carriers, electron-like particles, neutrinos, Higgs bosons…"). Rowett then shows me his latest acquisition: a few square inches of an extraordinary super-cushiony, sticky material. He drops an egg on it from a height of about two metres and it lands on the square without cracking or bouncing. "Astonishing!" Rowett says. When I ask him what it is good for, he gives me his usual answer: "For the ‘Wow!'."

Alex asks us to throw him something again, and this time he catches it. We applaud.

The critical point

A few months later, Rowett and I meet again in a New York City café. He rattles off interesting optical effects that he has witnessed, including a balcony on 29th Street and 3rd Avenue that appears to slope upwards when viewed from uptown and downwards from downtown, and a place from which the Empire State Building looks like it is a rocket blasting off. Rowett has been scouring the stalls of toy fairs, and begins pulling his acquisitions out of a bag: a Japanese-made penlight that projects a star chart; a device that relies on the Bernoulli principle to make a rocket pop out of a box when you blow on it; and real Mexican jumping beans — which Rowett calls "nature’s best novelty" — the bizarre and unexpected movements of which are caused by newly hatched caterpillars.

The last items in his bag are plastic straws. Rowett pinches each end of one with his fingers and winds it up like a crank until it bulges. "Flick it with your finger," he commands. I do, and it bursts with a bang. Startled coffee-drinkers look us over warily. "Adiabatic compression," Rowett explains to anyone caring to listen. "It heats the wall of the straw, weakening it, so all it takes is your finger to make the trapped air pop it. I had a physics professor in Munich explain it all to me!"

Suddenly I know how to describe Rowett's things. They each have a hidden order that, however familiar, shows itself in an unexpected and apparently magical way. His toys allow us to appreciate the order, and the magic too.

[Robert P Crease is chairman of the Department of Philosophy, Stony Brook University, and historian at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, US.]

Visit...

Grand Illusions


A. C. Gilbert "U-238 Atomic Energy Lab"

Crystal radio sets

Deceased--Betty James

Sir David Brewster...optics--the kaleidoscope

Some fun...some science toys

Spinthariscope

The home chemist...long gone

XUMP--online "science toys"

XUMP--online "science toys"

I have searched the Internet and have found a wide selection of "science toys" at XUMP covering astronomy, biology, chemistry, geology, and physics. Many novelty items including posters. And there are holiday sale prices. There is a handy search engine for search selections. Check out XUMP.


XUMP

Deceased--Betty James

Betty James
February 13th, 1918 to November 20th, 2008

Slinky
1945
Steel compressed: 2 3/8 x diam. 2 7/8" (6 x 7.3 cm)
Manufactured by James Spring & Wire Company; later James Industries
Poof Toys, USA
Betty James [1918-2008] and Richard James [1914-1975]

In 1943, Richard James, his assistant Coleman Barber, a US marine engineer stationed at the Cramp shipyards in Philadelphia, and half brother Dylan Gedig, a Canadian engineer, observed a torsion spring fall off a table and roll around on the deck (a torsion spring has no compression or tension). He told his wife: "I think there could be a toy in this." With a $500 loan, the three men ran tests, experimented with materials, and produced four hundred units of the toy. Betty James did some dictionary searching and came up with the name "Slinky". In November 1945, Richard and Betty James, through an arrangement with Gimbels in Philadelphia, were granted permission to set up an inclined plane in the toy department and demonstrate the spring's battery-less "walking" abilities. In 1948 they built a factory for James Industries' twenty employees in suburban Philadelphia, and a decade later, headquarters were set up in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, where the factory remained for thirty years.

A cheap toy loaded with physics.

ca. 1960s Commercial

"Betty James, who co-founded Slinky company, dies"

November 22nd, 2008

The Associated Press

HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. – Betty James, who co-founded the company that made the Slinky and beat the odds as a single mother in the late 1950s to become a successful executive, has died. She was 90.

She died Thursday, said a spokeswoman for the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

In 1945, James and her husband at the time, Richard, founded the company that would later make Slinky, the toy for which she was inducted into the Toy Industry Hall of Fame in 2001.

She took over management of James Industries Inc. 14 years after the company was founded, after her husband left her to follow a religious cult in Bolivia. Richard James died in 1974.

Initially, James would leave her six children with a caregiver from Sunday through Thursday while she oversaw operations in Philadelphia. But in 1965, she moved the company to her hometown of Hollidaysburg, where although it was sold in 1998 to Michigan-based POOF Products Inc., it remains today.

"She was an icon in the community because of that business," Blair County Commissioner Diane Meling said. "What kid didn't grow up with a Slinky?"

Hundreds of millions of Slinkys have been sold worldwide. James explained the classic toy's success in a 1995 interview with The Associated Press.

"I think really it's the simplicity of it," she said. "There's nothing to wind up; it doesn't take batteries. I think also the price helps. More children can play with it than a $40 or $60 toy."

"Betty James dies at 90; namer of Slinky kept the toy brand alive"

She saved the business after her husband left her, and expanded the line to include Slinky Jr., plastic and neon-colored versions and the Slinky Dog, among other products

by

Valerie J. Nelson

November 24th, 2008

Los Angeles Times

Betty James, who named the toy her husband invented -- the Slinky -- and rebuilt the toy company he abandoned, making the springy plaything a pervasive part of American culture, has died. She was 90.

James, who served as chief executive of the family-run business for almost 40 years, died Thursday at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, a hospital spokeswoman said. No cause of death was given.

In 1943, Richard James was a Navy engineer trying to figure out a way to stabilize instruments on ships at sea when a spring fell off a shelf. He watched it bounce end over end and went home to tell his wife, Betty, he thought he could make it into a toy that "walks."

When he asked her to name it, she turned to the dictionary and found "slinky," which means stealthy, sleek and sinuous.

Richard James tinkered with different types of steel and tension before debuting the coiled Slinky at a Gimbels department store on a snowy day in 1945 in Philadelphia.

"A Slinky just sitting there isn't very exciting. It has to move," Betty James told CNN.com in 2001. "It if hadn't been for Gimbels giving us the end of a counter to demonstrate, I don't know what would have happened."

The couple sold 400 of the toys in 90 minutes for $1 apiece.

The same year they introduced the Slinky, they borrowed $500 to form a company that was eventually known as James Industries to mass-produce the toy in the Philadelphia area.

By the late 1950s, the couple had a 12-acre estate near Bryn Mawr, Pa., but Richard James seemed uncomfortable with material success, according to biographical references.

He left his family in 1960 to join a religious cult in Bolivia and died there in 1974. He left behind six children between the ages of 2 and 18 and a business in shambles.

"These religious people always had their hands out. He had given so much away that I was almost bankrupt," Betty James said in 1996 in the Austin, Texas, American-Statesman.

She later recalled 1961 as her toughest year: She moved her children near her hometown of Altoona, Pa., and made a 450-mile weekly round-trip commute to the factory while a caregiver stayed with her children Monday through Thursday.

By 1965, she had moved the Slinky plant to Hollidaysburg, near her home, where it remains today.

Using a mortgage taken out on her house, James "gambled everything she had" and went to a New York toy show in 1963 -- and orders once again came pouring in, said her son, Tom James, in 2005 in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

More than 300 million Slinkys have been sold, according to a company history. The toys now sell for about $4 to $5.

James also was credited with expanding the Slinky line to include the Slinky Jr., plastic and neon-colored versions, the Slinky Dog -- made newly popular by 1995's "Toy Story" -- and Slinky Pets, among other products.

The "grzzzzzink" sound that the rolled-steel Slinky makes while in motion is but one aural memory of childhood for many baby boomers and their offspring.

The other is the catchy commercial jingle, which debuted on television in 1963 and includes this refrain:

Ev'ryone knows it's Slinky

It's Slinky, it's Slinky,

For fun, it's a wonderful toy

It's fun for a girl and a boy.

"The reason everyone knows the jingle," her son told the Philadelphia Inquirer, "is that we were too broke to buy a new one. We burned it into the mentality of the country."

Betty Mattas was born Feb. 13, 1918, in Altoona and met Richard James while attending Pennsylvania State University.

Upon retiring in 1998, she sold James Industries to Michigan-based Poof Products.

She never remarried.

"I had my family, and that was the center of my existence and still is," James said in 1995 in USA Today. "And I had Slinky."

In 2001, she became one of the few women inducted into the Toy Industry Hall of Fame, which praised her "leadership, foresight and business acumen" for turning around a struggling company to "produce what would become one of the country's true classic toys."

The success of Slinky was simple, she often said: "No batteries, nothing to wind up. These new toys on the market are lovely, but not everyone has $40, $50, $60 to spend on a child."

Among her survivors are three daughters and three sons.

And this...

When the Slinky's inventor Richard James, a naval engineer, and his wife decided to demonstrate their new toy at Gimbels Department Store in Philadelphia in the early 1940s, they feared that no one would buy it because it was so simple. They were so worried they gave a close friend a dollar to buy one. An hour and a half after the first demonstration, they had sold a total of 400 Slinkys!

The Slinky, whose design has been modified only once to crimp the ends for safety, remains the same today as it did at Gimbels. Not only is the Slinky an excellent toy, its action also demonstrates a variety of physical forces and principles.

The Slinky, like all objects, tends to resist change in its motion. Because of this inertia, if it were placed at the top of the stairs it would stay at rest without moving at all. At this point it has potential or stored energy. But once it is started down the stairs and gravity affects it, the potential energy is converted to the energy of motion or kinetic energy and the Slinky gracefully tumbles coil by coil down the stairs.

The physical properties of the slinky determine how quickly it moves under the influence of gravity. Although its movement may look simple, from a scientific point of view the motion is quite complex. As the slinky moves down the steps, energy is transferred along its length in a longitudinal or compressional wave, which resembles a sound wave that travels through a substance by transferring a pulse of energy to the next molecule. How quickly the wave moves depends on the spring constant and the mass of the metal. Other factors, such as the length of the slinky, the diameter of the coils and the height of the step must be considered to completely understand why a slinky moves as it does.

James originally developed the Slinky for the Navy as an anti-vibration device for ship instruments. When the Slinky failed to work for the Navy, it became one of the most successful toys of all time!--Newton's Apple.


Purchase a slinky online...enter "slinky" in the search box.

XUMP

Some fun...some science toys

Smart Camel...
or Just Physics?

Remember this toy...it will move towards the edge of a table and stop--why? Force vectors.

Here's the story... Here is a mechanical toy that knows when to stop marching as it approaches the edge of a table. How does it know? This is a good illustration of force vectors. An explanation was also given by Heidi Strahm Black in the Physics Teacher, Vol. 36, Sept. 1998 issue, p.375. This type of toy can be purchased in many toy shops, for instance, the American Science Surplus at www.sciplus.com for about $2.50 for a set of four. Some care should be given in the initial setup. The string that pulls the animal toy should be straight ahead. Because the friction depends on the surface, the weight which pulls the string has to be adjusted first to start the marching and then to get the intended effect that the toy will stop at the very edge of the table.

Physics Explanation

Tsing Bardin...

The force that is exerted on the toy is the tension of the string, which makes an angle to the horizontal direction.


Only the horizontal component of this force is driving the horizontal motion. The vertical component actually adds to the weight of the toy, and therefore increases the friction force. If the horizontal pull equals the friction force, then the toy has zero net force, and it will move at a constant velocity. However, since the angle of the string becomes steeper and steeper as the toy marches closer to the edge of the table top, the horizontal pull decreases but the vertical component of the force as well as the frictional force increases. The toy will therefore decrease its velocity until at the edge of the table the force is vertical , and there is no horizontal component to pull on the toy. The toy will then stop if its kinetic energy is small enough to be dissipated as work against the friction. The actual calculation is complicated, particularly with uncertainties in the response time of the toy and in the friction of the table edge against the string, and requires calculus as both the friction and the horizontal pulling force vary with the angle of the string. In practice you may have to try several surfaces or to modify the weight which pulls on the string. The minimum force required to get the toy started is simply calculated by equating the horizontal component of the force with the static friction. The string makes an angle A with the horizontal direction. We can estimate the friction coefficient of the surface by putting the toy without the string on an inclined plane with the same surface material. Tilt the surface, say with an angle B, until the toy starts to move.


From figure 2. the coefficient of friction = tan B. The minimum force F is calculated as follows: F cos A = coefficient of friction (F sin A + weight of the toy) = tan B (F sin A + weight of the toy). Where A is the angle between the string and the horizontal direction and B is the angle of the slope.

Beats me. Rub a simple stick on the notches and the propellor will rotate...reverse the procedure and the propellor will change directions.

If you know what makes it function...write.

Faraday Flashlight

This isn't quite a toy but nevertheless a fascinating instrument illustrating Michael Faraday's law of induction and providing unlimited light merely by shaking the instrument. No batteries; no batteries to recharge. The item is available in just about any general retail market. The fundamental idea is quite simple: The flashlight uses the "Faraday Principle" which states that when an electric conductor is moved through a magnetic field an electric current will flow in the conductor. The flashlight will then store the charge in a capacitor where the energy is used to illuminate a bright LED light.

The Faraday Principle

In 1820 Oersted discovered that a current traveling along a conductor has a magnetic effect on its surroundings. This connection between electricity and magnetism interested scientists of the day and after many failures Michael Faraday made the great discovery of Electromagnetic Induction on August 29 1831, in which he obtained an electric current from a magnetic field.

The main ingredients of the Faraday Principle are shown above in a diagram representing a set-up to illustrate the basic principle. Let's take a coil with a large number of turns, and connect it to a sensitive meter called a galvanometer. If you move the permanent magnet towards the coil the needle on the meter will move in one direction indicating an electric current. Now if the magnet is moved away from the coil the needle deflects in the opposite direction than before. If no motion of the magnet is present, the needle returns to the original position indicating no induced current. The faster the movement, the greater the voltage induced in the coil system.

The exact same Faraday principle is adopted in the probes, the coil is replaced by water (also a conductor), the induced voltage appearing across the two electrodes. As discussed above, the faster the velocity, the greater the induced voltage, easy!

Of Frogmen and Submarines...

of Cabbages and Kings

Dive, Dive, Dive

 
Nearly fifty years ago these toys were extremely popular...and are still available today. Back then they could be purchased for 25 cents and a boxtop from a Kellog's cereal. Benjamin & Henry Hirsch/Hirsch labs, a small cosmetic manufacturer, was the supplier for the frogmen and submarine [U.S.S. Nautilus]. Tons of money was made and tons of cereal was sold. What is involved here is a cool blend of chemistry and physics. The chemistry part involves "baking powder" [sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3)]. But there is more than just the sodium bicarbonate: Cream of tartar [potassium bitartrate KC4H5O6] which is the acidic part that reacts with the alkaline sodium bicarbonate releasing the gas carbon dioxide [CO2]. The carbon dioxide is released and the phenomena turns into the physics of buoyancy. Often the substitute for for potassium bitartrate is a combination of sodium aluminum phosphate [Na3Al2H15(PO4)8] and calcium dihydrogen phosphate [Ca(H2PO4)2]. Using the submarine as an example there is an area inside that holds baking powder. This area closes up completely except for a small hole or series of holes on the bottom. When placed into water, the submarine sinks. After several seconds the baking powder reacts with water to produce carbon dioxide bubbles. As a result, a small air bubble is formed underneath the submarine which gives it just enough buoyancy to rise to the top of the water level. Once the submarine hits the top of the water level, the submarine tilts to the side and the carbon dioxide bubble is released from underneath the submarine--the sub sinks back down. As it goes down it continues to produce more carbon dioxide and once again the submarine rises.

Buoyancy is the upward force on an object produced by the surrounding fluid in which it is fully or partially immersed, due to the pressure difference of the fluid between the top and bottom of the object. The net upward buoyancy force is equal to the magnitude of the weight of fluid displaced by the body. This force enables the object to float or at least to seem lighter. Buoyancy acts against the force of gravity and so makes objects seem lighter with respect to gravity. 

PUTT, PUTT, PUTT, PUTT

I remember them. Mine was home made from a thin copper sheet resembling a crude boat or tub. Dad substituted the candle with a different flame source: A screw cap cylinder with a small hole in the lid in which was placed a small quantity of water and a chunk of "Carbide" [carbon disulfide]--acetylene. PUTT, PUTT, PUTT, PUTT for sure. Wish I still had it.

"... celebrating the joys of the pop-pop boat"

"Propulsion of the Putt-Putt Boat – I"

A. C. Gilbert "U-238 Atomic Energy Lab"

Science can yield technologies that can grease the economic wheel--so can an old science toy: The A. C. Gilbert "U-238 Atomic Energy Lab" issued in 1951. The A. C. Gilbert chemistry sets were enormously popular and existing sets do command a premium but nothing like the physics set.

The A. C. Gilbert "U-238 Atomic Energy Lab" was auctioned on December 14th, 2006 and sold for $7, 944.

Here is the auction description:

1951 Complete A.C. Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab (Complete)

A. C. Gilbert was a man of true inspiration, often compared to Walt Disney for his creative genius. Gilbert had high expectations of America's youngsters, and with such he tried to help the future engineers, doctors and leaders by providing toys worthy of their imaginations. As the inventor of the Erector Set, and seeing its commercial appeal, then he and his company set a higher goal. They became the leading manufacturer of scientific toys (chemistry sets) and construction sets (Erector), all of which gained wide acclaim at the retail level.

Interested in the joy of science more than remuneration, however, Gilbert created the Atomic Energy Lab U-238 -- with the help of MIT's able faculty. The toy was made to de-mystify the perils of nuclear energy and to encourage the understanding of chemistry, physics and nuclear science -- ultimately helping kids (and adults) become more open to the possibilities these disciplines offer.

This educational composite, which was marketed during 1950-51, sold for $49.50 -- a very high price for a toy set, even by today's standard. One such, Gilbert's "Atomic Energy Lab," is here available and it includes all the original componentry which detail:

1. U-239 Geiger radiation counter.
2. Electroscope to measure radioactivity of different substances.
3. Spinthariscope to watch "live" radioactive disintegration.
4. Wilson Cloud Chamber to see paths of electrons & alpha particles at 10k mps
5. Three very low-level radioactive sources (Alpha, Beta, Gamma).
6. Four samples of Uranium-bearing ores
7. Nuclear Spheres (used to visual build models of molecules)
8. The book "Prospecting for Uranium"
9. The "Gilbert Atomic Energy Manual"
10. The comic book "Learn How Dagwood Splits the Atom"
11. Three "Winchester" Batteries (size "C")

All of these components were retail-presented in a sturdy, hinged case that measures 25" x 16 1/2" x 5", all with an easy-to-carry handle. The case came in beautiful faux snake skin cover with "Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab" wonderfully stenciled on the cover, and atomic particles displayed below.

The set we offer here is truly amazing in that it has all the original pieces in remarkable and apparent unused condition. The case remains in its wonderful red color with minimal wear to the surface, and survives in very strong EX/MT condition. Inside the cover, there appears a full dimension, illustrated paper appliqué which is in Excellent condition, qualified only by a couple small stains and handwritten pricing. The remainder of the contents are still intact, and though appearing unused, they have lain dormant for over half a century and appear in EX/MT condition. The two books are still in EX/MT-NM condition, with the comic book in Excellent (taped spine). Last, but not least, included is an original Gilbert Toys catalog from 1951 which provides an ad for the Atomic Energy Lab. The book is in VG/EX condition.

Overall, the entire set (remarkably still complete) is a true find and though we can't physically go back to the time when atomic energy and toys were as fascinating as this, we may reminisce in how much fun it was to be a kid.

Associated with the A. C. Gilbert "U-238 Atomic Energy Lab" were other physics toys and a famous cereal premium.





This ring spinthariscope was known as the Lone Ranger Atom Bomb Ring and advertised as a "seething scientific creation." The Lone Ranger was more closely associated with silver bullets than atomic bombs but that's what it was called. When the red base (which served as a "secret message compartment") was taken off, and after a suitable period of time for dark adaptation, you could look through a small plastic lens at scintillations caused by polonium alpha particles striking a zinc sulfide screen.

Distributed by Kix Cereals (15 cents plus a boxtop), the instructions stated: "You'll see brilliant flashes of light in the inky darkness inside the atom chamber. These frenzied vivid flashes are caused by the released energy of atoms. PERFECTLY SAFE - We guarantee you can wear the KIX Atomic "Bomb" Ring with complete safety. The atomic materials inside the ring are harmless.

It has been difficult to determine exactly what radioactive element was used for some sources indicated a bit of uranium or radium, but most favored polonium210 that had a halflife of about 138 days.

I still have mine and can fetch $125 and up if that precious shipping box was retained. Maybe there is a lesson to be learned--don't throw away any science toys.