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What if you swam in a nuclear storage pool?

xkcd's What If? · 3.2M views · 2024-04-02 · 3:58

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Overview

Randall Munroe of xkcd answers what would happen if you swam in a spent nuclear fuel pool, and how much radiation you would receive at the surface versus at depth.

On Hacker News

Recommended whenever a thread asks how dangerous it is to fall into a reactor or fuel pool.

Recommended by 2 HN people across 1 months · HN mentions 2024–2025

Topics

Nuclear power & fusionEveryday physics & science demos
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xkcdwhat ifradiationnuclearspent fuel

What people said

seanmcdirmid · 2025-10 · Recommendation

Doesn’t it depend on how far they sink? I’m pretty sure xkcd did a comic on this. Oh, it’s a video, here it is: [VIDEO] Edit: ok, I’m probably the fiftieth person to point this out. It’s still a good video.

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benmathes · 2025-10 · Recommendation

XKCD has a good video about this. The top of the water is remarkably safe, and a life vest would keep you up there! [VIDEO]

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cpeterso · 2024-11 · Reference

> He took a dip in a pool with a functioning nuclear pile xkcd published a What If? video about the consequences of swimming in a nuclear fuel pool: [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by xkcd's What If?, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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