OK more questions. It uses a shed load of V and A and creates a massive amount of radiation. Where does the radiation go? My (poor) understanding is remembering my O’Level physics about half lives etc. You can’t just dissipate radiation, or can you?
Good question. Unfortunately even physicists don’t use the word ‘radiation’ altogether carefully. The sort of radiation you are remembering is the stuff emitted by radioactive sources (Cobalt60 in medical sterilisers, for example, or Americium241 in smoke detectors or the radionuclides that were belched out of Chernobyl). That radiation takes time to die down. But the word radiation can also be used in a slightly different way to describe electromagnetic radiation, in particular X-rays. These are what the Z machine makes. They’re only emitted during the machine pulse and for a very short time afterwards, as the remnants of the target cool down. The X-rays are absorbed by the surrounding materials and converted, mostly, to heat.
As it happens Z is such a powerful X-ray source that it can make secondary radiation by ‘activating’ materials in the surrounding structures. These secondary sources can be quite long lived and rather a nuisance if you want to go back to the machine after the shot has been fired. Folks who design equipment like this go to considerable lengths to make the surroundings out of elements which are hard to activate. But it’s impossible to eliminate them completely. IIRC after a powerful shot on the NIF laser at Livermore it could be up to a day before the surroundings had ‘cooled down’ enough, in a radioactive sense, for it to be safe to approach the business end of the machine. And even then you went in with a Geiger counter to the fore.
VB
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First fight just broke out, although it was very short-lived with folk getting dragged off into side rooms sharpish.
Surprisingly it was the management caste rather than developers.
This all sounds fucking ace, can you take some videos next time?
Good idea.
I’m off to investigate options for DIY pay-per-view.
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YouTube fame awaits
Yes thank you. I remember now - sort of.
I assume lead is an element that is hard to activate, hence its use in shielding. Lead aprons etc. Is it hard to activate due to its density?
I did the lips 
Stronzetto would have a field day with that
Lead is indeed good for X-ray shielding because of its density. But activation is a nuclear process - the incoming X-rays actually change the material from one element into another, the product material being radioactive Induced radioactivity - Wikipedia.
VB
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Thank you, Valvebloke, as ever.
Huge source of experience, from which it’s a pleasure to glean a bit.
Thanks for the thanks. I’m the typical ‘expert’ though in that I know rather a lot about not very much. If you happen to want a view on basic physics and mathematics, advanced electricity and magnetism, optics, laser science and ionising radiation and a few of their applications then I ought to be able to help. Oh, and valve electronics. And type 1 diabetes. Otherwise I’m reduced to what I learned on courses at work and read on the interweb.
VB
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I’ll just stick to toilets.
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You should see a doctor about that.
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Sucker 
If she let him 
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I’m working in Austria for 3 days, currently sat in the hotel having dinner and christ does it stink. The whole restaurant smells of cigarette smoke, I pitty the staff working at the bar.
Id forgotten how revolting it is. My clothes are going to smell tomorrow and im sat well away from the designated smoking area.
It’s not very often i feel the UK is a step ahead of mailand Europe but on the smoking ban we are well in front.
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