Radioactive materials and radiation.......

[Chad L. Magee]

So what are these dudes smoking?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html


Todd

After quickly scanning through the article yesterday, I can see some of their points connected to string theory, but not all of them.  Todd, thank you for sharing, it gave me some things to ponder about, which may be either a good or a bad thing (time will tell).  The really high level theoretical physists  (much like their chemistry counterparts) can be considered "out there" sometimes, far removed from what is going on in real life to the average person.  They become trapped in their own little universe of equations and theories, even though they are studying about the real one down here that they are living in.....

[Todd Wilson]

Should we all buy one of these?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=200312709827

Which brings up a question...would this unit above detect x rays?


Todd

[Chad L. Magee]

Should we all buy one of these?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=200312709827

Which brings up a question...would this unit above detect x rays?


Todd

A G-M counter is not a bad thing to have around, as you can always check if something might be potentially radioactive (like odd rocks, radium watches, glassware, etc.).  They will detect most alphas, betas and some gammas, but the low level ones sometimes do not get measured (like low level x-rays and below on the electromagnetic scale).  As for the one you pointed out, it will detect some of the x-rays but not all of them (it is an older version, so probably overall very low efficiency compared to modern ones).  The detector will not give a very specific accurate reading for only gammas.  There are other detectors that will give you more accurate gamma counts, but they are $$$ and are not usually as portable as a G-M.  Here is a little pdf on the G-M detectors that you might want to look at to help explain the topic more:

http://www.radpro.com/RSO-10-5-PRS.pdf