3131: Cesium

Cesium

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Title text: Someday I hope to find a way to mess up a recipe so badly that it draws the attention of the International Air Transport Association, the International Mathematical Olympiad, or the NSA.

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Explanation

This is one of 52 incomplete explanations: This page was created by A BOT USING A DISASTROUSLY EXPERIMENTAL RECIPE. Need more on the other agencies mentioned in the title text and ideas on how he could succeed. The current section on how to attract attention needs work. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

Cesium-137 (Cs-137) is a radioactive isotope of cesium (a.k.a. "caesium"). This comic was posted the day after the FDA posted an advisory about frozen shrimp sourced from an Indonesian firm, because they were nearby materials contaminated with Cs-137 during shipment. A sample of breaded shrimp was confirmed to have been contaminated.

Rather than being concerned about the potential health impacts, Megan and Cueball are curious about the technical details that led to this contamination. Cs-137 is normally a by-product of nuclear reactors and is occasionally used in food irradiation, along with other more common uses. Cueball and Megan cannot fathom how one could unintentionally contaminate shrimp with radioactive waste, and Cueball comments that his biggest culinary screw-up only attracted the attention of his local fire department, likely because he set something on fire while cooking. A real-life example of seemingly-random contamination by Cs-137 was the Goiânia accident in Brazil.

The title text says that one of Cueball's (or possibly Randall's) ambitions is to draw the attention of various organizations (International Air Transport Association (IATA), International Mathematical Olympiad or the National Security Agency (NSA)) with a recipe he has butchered, either by accident or, more likely in his case, on purpose. Possessing and (accidentally or intentionally) releasing a radiation source like Cs-137 could get the attention of the NSA. Needless to say, it is difficult to imagine a cooking error that could be in any way brought to the attention of IATA or IMO. To "mess up a recipe", in the sense of cooking it for oneself or a small group of others, would be unlikely to create a problem on a scale that an international agency would take note of. A recipe that was published for others to use could cause more significant problems if it led to harm to many people. This might involve ingredients that were poisonous, or preparation methods that were unsafe. The word "recipe" is sometimes used metaphorically to describe a set of step-by-step instructions for tasks that don't involve food: "recipes" for chemical procedures (not unlike cooking recipes, in many ways), "recipes" for doing things with computers, etc. A number of these might be of interest to security agencies.

How to attract attention

To attract the attention of the IATA

If the recipe is used in major airports, and the recipe is contaminated with a drug, the pilots that consume it could experience vision loss or other problems, and if this recipe is widely used and normal people won't notice much besides minor side effects, then this could attract the attention of of the IATA.

Attracting the attention of the NSA

This is pretty easy to think of, there could be a secret code hidden in the ingredients of a recipe, and if the code affects the whole nation, then this could attract the attention of NSA.

Attracting the attention of the International Mathematical Olympiad

A recipe to attract the attention of the International Mathematical Olympiad is much harder to imagine. Randall's best chance might be to cause an incident with some mathematically interesting property that inspires a math puzzle to be written about it. Another possibility is some person is trying to give answers to a person in the olympiad, and gave the person a recipe with the answers as a secret code inside, and this will attract the attention of the International Mathematical Olympiad. However, these are most probably all on purpose and will be very rare to accidentally make these recipes. About a week prior to the publication of this comic, a botched "math exercise" about baking that lacked an actual question went viral and was reported on by traditional media, but it happened at an elementary school, completely unrelated to the IMO.

Transcript

[Megan looks at a news story on her phone while talking with Cueball.]

Megan: There's a recall of frozen shrimp contaminated with cesium-137.

Cueball: With what?

Megan: I know, right?

Cueball: How!?

[Megan has put her phone away and she shrugs with her arms held out palm up.]

Megan: No idea, but I bet it involved some expensive equipment. Those cesium sources aren't cheap.

Cueball: Man.

[Megan stands normally while Cueball holds a hand to his chin.]

Megan: It's honestly a little inspiring to realize that it's always possible to screw up in a totally new way.

Cueball: Yeah, the biggest agency whose attention I've drawn by messing up a recipe is the local fire department.

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Discussion

I think that's called a recipe for disaster. NOTE: I am also 104.225.172.143. 138.43.101.123 14:36, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

No, I am 104.225.172.143! 82.13.184.33 15:09, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

I'm 104.225.172.143, and so's my wife! 92.23.2.228 20:42, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

I also chose this guy's wife. 2600:1014:B130:F85B:54C8:CB88:DB33:11D0

My best recipe comes with a Notice to Mariners Hcs (talk) 14:45, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

I added a transcript. Hopefully it's okay. 104.225.172.143 14:54, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

A gram of gold runs on the order of ~$100 USD as of writing; a gram of cs-137 looks to be in the millions~billions range. --158.91.163.9 14:55, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

Nope. It's 99 dollars. 191.57.16.100 20:40, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

I think you're quoting the price for Caesium metal in general, which is probably almost entirely Caesium 133; Caesium 137 is a synthetic isotope which could easily be a million times more expensive than the natural stuff, gram for gram. 80.41.70.128 22:37, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

You're right, my bad. I couldn't find a quote for Cs137, but considering it's produced from uranium, it probably is very expensive. As for the shrimp thing, I doubt anything close to a gram of Cesium ended up in the shipment. It's probably a component from a measuring device. 177.12.48.45 09:57, 21 August 2025 (UTC)

Caesium contamination usually is caused by nuclear accidents (or atmospheric nuclear weapon tests) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesium-137#Environmental_contamination. It is unlikely that someone acquired pure Cs-137 and then "accidentally" contaminated the shrimp with that. --134.102.219.31 15:31, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

Cs137 can be found for approximately 20 USD per µCi, which equals 0.0000000115g. That means 1g would cost 1,739,130,435 USD. The good news is that same gram would be worth 20 USD in another 795.7 years. Although it wouldn't be all Cs-137 anymore, nor exactly a gram. 77.173.137.243 21:19, 21 August 2025 (UTC)

So, what you're saying is... not a good investment for the future, with a 99.99999885ish% depreciation (before any effects of monetary inflation), on top of me also having to become somewhere roughly around 8.5 centuries old. I suppose the latter might be a plus, if you can guarantee it, but it's not exactly a ringing endorsement for your scheme. ;) 84.43.20.118 22:04, 21 August 2025 (UTC)

Bothering the NSA shouldn't be hard, just write some of their secrets on a cake (with frosting is optional) and post it online. 212.101.26.209 14:57, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

I feel like the writing on the cake is not part of its recipe. I think a more fitting way to get their attention would be "accidentally" poisoning the president with your cooking. --

128.31.34.92 22:09, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

If it gets worse, simply expressing disagreement with a certain person could get the NSA on your case. These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For (talk) 02:10, 24 August 2025 (UTC)

What would IMO do, revoke your math license? 216.73.162.10 15:22, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

They have numerous penalties at their disposal. 82.13.184.33 15:27, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

I imagined the reason the IMO would get involved would be because the recipe created some interesting mathematical problem that could be used for the next competition. For example, something like this video, where a grocery order taken too literally creates a seemingly harmless Diophantine equation whose smallest positive solutions are on the order of 10^80. 137.25.230.78 15:56, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

A cook on Air Force 1 "accidentally" contaminates Trump's fast food with cesium. The assassination attempt fails and US retaliates by invading Canada/Panama/Greenland (roll 1d3). IMO bans the US team, like they banned Russia in 2022. Thus a single cooking "accident" can get the attention of IAEA, IATA, IMO, and NSA. --128.31.34.92 22:21, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

Maybe The IATA could get involved if your ruined recipe caused food poisoning on a commercial airliner that then resulted in an in-air emergency (whole flight deck passed out). 170.85.70.249 (talk) 17:32, 20 August 2025 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Or if you create a column of dense toxic fumes that spreads over a wide area (on the level of a volcano eruption). On the other hand, I wonder what could bring the attention of the IMO when Terryology seemingly couldn't.--94.73.52.245 18:56, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

The criticality accident in 1999 at the Tokaimura nuclear facility seems like a good example of messing up a recipe in a way that draws considerable attention. Tokaimura nuclear accidents 2600:387:4:803:0:0:0:1B 19:11, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

1. Randall creates a new way to cook airplane food that is either cheap enough or expensive enough to significantly affect airline ticket pricing. 2. Randall's recipe poisons a Math Olympiad team. 3. The coach of the team turns out to be an undercover spy. 24.53.184.90 23:47, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

IATA is an international trade association for airlines. It's not particularly involved in air safety, except as a sideline; the International Civil Aviation Organization is much more involved that way. However, IATA used to be directly concerned with recipes. In the 1950s, the IATA airlines agreed on international standards for meals, under which economy class passengers would only be provided with sandwiches. However, airlines such as SAS and Swissair provided their passengers with more and better sandwiches than U.S. airlines such as Pan Am and TWA were willing to provide. Eventually IATA issued a rule that sandwiches were to be cold, simple, unadorned, and inexpensive, feature “a substantial and visible” chunk of bread, and could not include materials normally regarded as expensive or luxurious, such as smoked salmon, oysters, caviar, lobster, game, asparagus, or pate de foie gras. Providing better sandwiches than those IATA allowed could result in a fine. (The rule was later revoked to allow economy class passengers to receive hot meals.) So at one point, it was possible to mess up a sandwich recipe by adding expensive ingredients that would incur the wrath of IATA. --208.59.176.206 00:43, 21 August 2025 (UTC)

The explanation "... if the recipe is used in major airports, and the recipe is contaminated with a drug, the pilots that eat could experience vision loss or other problems, and if this recipe is widely used and normal people won't notice much besides minor side effects, then this could attract the attention of of the IATA" does not make sense. If a recipe caused vision loss when pilots ate the food, it would also cause vision loss for non-pilots. --208.59.176.206 00:49, 21 August 2025 (UTC)

The phrase "messing up a recipe" means whatever Randall intended it to mean. The fact that some people may use the phrase to mean to make something at home does not mean that such a definition was intended by Randall. I don't think I have ever heard "messing up a recipe" mean anything other than ruining the preparation of the food. Inquirer (talk) 02:55, 21 August 2025 (UTC)

Someone who creates recipes could make a mistake, publish a bad recipe, and cause problems. If a recipe left food unsafe, for example: not cooked enough to kill bacteria, left at room temperature for an unsafe time, etc. Tell people to find wild mushrooms, and that the red mushrooms with white spots are extra tasty. :-) BunsenH (talk) 03:37, 21 August 2025 (UTC)

If Randall ever made a recipe for lava cake, one of the problems would how you keep it from melting the plate. 107.77.205.64 18:23, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

Is it possible this comic was inspired by the recent FDA recall on certain Indonesian frozen shrimp? 174.21.93.112 03:33, 21 August 2025 (UTC)

That's noted, with that specific link, in the second sentence of the Explanation here. BunsenH (talk) 03:41, 21 August 2025 (UTC)

Ack, apologies. I may be a little stupid. 174.21.93.112

68 Bq/kg of Cs-137 is about 93 billions Cs-137 atoms in 1 kg of shrimp, that is about 1,5 picomole or 213 picograms. On the other hand one BED (banana equivalent dose) is ~15 Bq per piece, so eating a half pound package of this shrimp will irradiate you in the same amount as eating one banana, in terms of number of decays, but much less in terms of biological dose: potassium-40 in bananas emit beta radiation which is much more harmful when coming from ingested material than beta and gamma, roughly equally emitted by Cs-137. So this recall is on the level of emptying a reservoir after two guys pissed into it. Security theater. -- 2620:1F7:2C04:7C44:0:0:31:3A 14:12, 21 August 2025 (UTC)

Or the Dutch boy at the [deleted] dike. With the assault by Our (USNA) Government on such business-insensitive excesses as food safety, we should be grateful that the FDA is, at least for now, still capable of functioning at this level. 2605:59C8:160:DB08:5C9D:407E:3E50:C822 15:08, 21 August 2025 (UTC)

The advisory does say that the danger is very low. I think this is one of those "abundance of caution" things. Barmar (talk) 15:35, 22 August 2025 (UTC)

I mean, you can't assume each individual shrimp was mixed with the same amount of cesium. Maybe some of it got a super dose and is actually harmful. Since the general public doesn't carry around geiger counters to restaurants, I say the recall is warranted.

Reminds me of the tale of George de Hevesy who effectively did take a geiger counter to the (boarding house) dining table... But, then, he was suspecting that something would be found. Different times! 82.132.236.60 15:40, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

I think the fact that there is any cs137 in the shrimp at all is concerning. Where is it coming from? Did someone dump spent nuclear fuel near a fishery? How much and for how long? 177.12.48.45 14:45, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

Not read the incident report, maybe it says there. But it's quite possible that some stage of processing uses a radiation source to scan the load of shrimp for unwanted debris (pass it under the emitter, if any significant bits of metal/dirt is in the supply, it'll cause a notable fluctuation in the detector beneath), or perhaps to asses the mass distribution (if the water content is enough to moderate the source-to-detector signal in a relatable manner, it could accurately estimate the quantity of shrimp passing by continuously, where weighing is less practical/accurate given the volume and continuous movement; or it might even track the average size of shrimp, for grading purposes). They do use small amounts of isotopes for that kind of thing. Amerecium is famouspy used in smoke-detectors/alarms, and other radionuclides (chosen for their particular mix of alpha/beta/gamma radiation, availability and sufficient half-life to match the product use-span.

Now imagine what if, perhaps ironically, the emitter capsule vibrated loose (or was dropped, in the midst of a swap-out of an 'old' one, and for some reason the person wldoing it didn't feel the need to emergency-stop the line) and got into the supply chain, either fragmenting or leaching out (as heat and cold, and perhaps mechanical pressures, further prepared the shrimp-load, now with added debris). 82.132.236.60 15:40, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

Mooseberry fudge cake batter could very easily get the attention of the International Air Transport Association and possibly the NSA. As well as the Pottsylvania espionage community. Lordpishky (talk) 06:27, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

Currently the explanation seems kind of centered on the idea that recipe only means a cooking recipe. "Recipe" used to mean to take, as in a prescription - a physician's instructions to a pharmacist/chemist. (This wiki entry recently said that recipe outside of cookery was a metaphor/extension - it isn't.) Recipe as cookery came later. If you look up recipe in the dictionary, cookery is just a special case.Merriam Webster - recipe

"Recipe - 1580s, "medical prescription, a formula for the composing of a remedy written by a physician," from French récipé (15c.), from Latin recipe "take!" (this or that ingredient), ... It was the word written by physicians at the head of prescriptions. Figurative meaning "a prescribed formula" is from 1640s. Meaning "instructions for preparing a particular food" is recorded by 1716." Rx is a holdover from Recipe. etymonline - recipe

Cookery is only some of the every-day chemistry we do. Mixing chlorine bleach and various substances (ammonia, acids like vinegar, alcohol) can have nasty results.

Messing up a prescription, a chemical formula or chemical/nuclear ingredients is well within the literal definition of messing up a recipe, and gives more latitude for coming up with things that might draw attention from those organizations. 2600:387:4:803:0:0:0:98 18:10, 26 August 2025 (UTC)
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