Addie's Oddities

I have been enamored with radioactive materials ever since ever since I read the book “Green Glass Sea” in middle school. It’s a fictional story about a tomboyish girl who grew up at Los Alamos during the Manhattan project. The idea of a desert being turned to glass was both disturbing and incredible to me, and I began hunting for Uranium glass soon after that.

As I have gotten older, I have learned to understand the massive ecological and social impact of the Trinity nuclear test and still appreciate the beauty of radioactivity, especially in Vaseline glass. Most of my pieces are purchased at antique stores, and most cost under $10. I don’t purchase pieces I know I won’t use, so I usually avoid buying plates and kitchenware.

It’s not actually radioactivity that causes the characteristic green glow of uranium glass. It is fluorescence from UV reactivity, and it’s common in non-radioactive materials as well. Selenium, manganese, lead, calcium carbonate, and cerium are a few I can think of that can also fluoresce under UV light exposure, and they all appear different colors. I prefer uranium glass mostly because I love the translucent green color that collects around the edges of the glass. These are some of the pieces that I own: