raden wrote:
In message .com,
writes
Newshound wrote:
It's actually for testing an old Geiger counter that was a Maplin kit.
The natural K40 in high potash fertiliser will give you about double the
natural background.
I was told that the radiation detectors at Sellafield/Windscale were
sensitive enough to trigger an alarm if somebody went past them
carrying a pack of cigarettes -
Sounds like ******** to me
--
geoff
Not completely, as far as I can tell. Do a bit of googleing for
cigarettes and polonium 210 for some interesting data on the radiation
dosage to the lungs from smoking cigarettes. However, as polonium-210
is an alpha emitter, it's not detectable by a portal monitor, which
will look for gamma emmissions, and maybe neutrons. However, (again) -
as potassium-40 is a gamma-emitter, it is just about feasible to detect
raised concentrations of potassium in the environment by looking for
the characteristic signature of K-40 emissions, which are at a
particular energy - however, an expensive multi-spectral monitor is
needed. The Americans have tried using just this technique to detect
contraband tobacco & marijuana in freight in 1992 see
URL:http://spiedl.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=PSISDG002276000001000 374000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes
so it is possible that a portal monitor - especially the 'pause for 5
seconds while being measured' type would notice elevated K-40 levels.
If a nuclear worker reads this newsgroup, they might be able to say
definitively.
Cheers,
Sid