Randall Munroe, the man behind the xkcd cartoons that light up my world, blogs about ridiculous and unlikely scenarios at What If? He uses his physics knowledge and some wide-ranging research to answer hypothetical questions that couldn’t be answered with an experiment or by direct inference from actual events.
Scenario 29 answers the question:
What if I took a swim in a typical spent nuclear fuel pool? Would I need to dive to actually experience a fatal amount of radiation? How long could I stay safely at the surface?
It turns out that, as long as you stayed far enough away from the fuel rods while in the pool, you’d probably experience a lower dose of radiation than you would walking around outside the pool. The amount of radiation in the water halves with every seven centimetre increment away from its source. Divers are actually employed to perform tasks and service the equipment in these pools, so it can’t be that dangerous. There is a description of an accident, however, and it makes fascinating reading (follow the link too).
Read the scenario here.
