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Illumination idea

Posted: 05 Oct 2019 06:34
by Whitewings
This is just a rough sketch for a setting element. A series of large caverns is lit by naturally occurring "panels" in the walls, floor and ceiling, or maybe just some of them (just one wall, perhaps). The mechanism is that a large body of high grade radioactive material behind a thick wall of crystal, and the crystal acts as shielding, and also the gamma is absorbed and re-emitted, ultimately, as UV down through IR. I know it's wildly improbable, but am I neglecting some aspect that makes it impossible?

Re: Illumination idea

Posted: 05 Oct 2019 10:17
by Pabappa
*scrub* all I can think of is a children's book called _Cave of Time_ where the caves were lit by a "phosphorescent glow" .... until now it never occurred to me that such things aren't likely to pop up by chance.

I enjoyed that book so much that I "shop-dropped" it into the place where I worked when i grew up with a price tag saying $0.00 ... never got to see what happened when someone picked it up, alas.