Ask a science question, get a science answer.
Some possible factors, from reading similar discussions:
Tritium paint is radioactive and produces a pale green fluorescence on watches.
The Simpsons had a glowing green fuel rod in the opening. The rod would not have glowed green in reality.
Uranium glass fluoresces green under UV light
since 1) and 3) are things that maybe 10 people in the world even know about, it's probably the Simpsons yeah
In 2023, yeah, but remember that it isn't in 2023 that the association was made.
Tritium watches used to be a much bigger deal some decades back, as you could actually use the thing in the dark. Subsequent to that, battery-powered digital watches with a light became common, and then a lot of people just moved to using a cell phone to know the time.
As the linked WP article details, uranium glass also used to be more-common prior to the government locking up a lot of supplies of uranium. I've only seen uranium glass in person in museums, and in general, plastic has displaced a lot of glassware today.
The blue hue is called Cherenkov radiation. It happens when a particle moves through a medium early fast, leading to light being released. It’s like a sonic boom but for light.
As for the green glow, maybe it’s due to uranium glass glowing green unused UV light.
Really fast
Well that's the understatement of the week 🙂
When a photon (a light particle) enters a medium, it's speed drops somewhat. Lightspeed-the-universal-constant, however, is unchanged; so at that point it becomes possible for another particle in that medium to go faster than light.
When that happens, you get Cherenkov radiation.
"Really fast" indeed 😁 (i assume you know this, but I found it worthwhile to add a little clarification that it's not formula-1-really-fast)
Not really "faster than light", but faster than light in that medium. The phrase "faster than light" normally refers to moving faster than c, which particles ~~with rest mass~~ can't really do according to our current models.
That was my point, but clearly not well formulated - thank you for clarifying.
There's a bit of miscommunication here.
Nothing travels faster than c, or the speed of light within a vacuum.
The speed of light within a medium (like water) is not c. It is less.
When a particle is traveling at c and slams into a medium like water with enough force it will continue traveling faster than light normally would in that medium, and give off that radiation as it does.
But it is not traveling faster than light as you emphasized. It is traveling at nearly c and getting slowed down. It is often referred to a "light based sonic boom" though because that makes sense. But only when you consider the transition from vacuum to a medium or medium to medium.
Protip: anytime someone points out a thing is traveling faster than light they're wrong because really: nothing does ever. It isn't physically possible and the smartest minds on the planet have tried to reason how it might be for nearly a century now, with no progress at all. There are workarounds but they don't involve "travel" in the real sense, more like displacement.
I'm aware, and that was the point I was trying to make - but clearly ineffectively. Thank you for the extra clarifications.