‘When David’s Geiger counter began picking up radiation five doors from his mom’s house, he decided that he had “too much radioactive stuff in one place” and began to disassemble the reactor.’
http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html
So is this article bogus and why is his skin fried? Sure is not acne. I’m no physicist, just curious. He looks worse than I did after a month under a Varian Linear Accelerator for treatment reasons. My background is 30 years in Radiology, so I find this interesting.
So is this article bogus and why is his skin fried? Sure is not acne. I’m no physicist, just curious. He looks worse than I did after a month under a Varian Linear Accelerator for treatment reasons. My background is 30 years in Radiology, so I find this interesting.
I was a reactor operator for a pressurized nuclear reactor on a submarine. One of the most important parts of my job included maintaining and operating neutron detectors and neutron test sources. I also have a background in physics (after my time in the Navy). I have built, operated, and maintained many different types of nuclear test equipment including scintillation counters, various types of neutron detectors, ion chambers, as well as handheld alpha, beta/gamma, and neutron detectors. I have also worked under radiological controls and am completely familiar with contamination surveys and radiation surveys.
I am surprised that you take the 5 doors down statement at face value. If we assume a point source and suppose 5 doors down means something like 30 meters, then the intensity at 1 meter would be 900 times higher. On contact (typically assumed to be about 5 cm) would be 360,000 times higher. Even if his GM detector had a range down to 0.01 mrad/hr it would still be measuring 3.6 rad/hr on contact. This is not likely for many reasons, including my discussion before where I doubt that he would be able to fission U-233 with his microcurie (alpha) Am-241/Be neutron sources in the first place (which would be the *only* possible expanation for 3.6 rad/hr on contact other than stealing a radiography source). If that 5 doors down statement is true then it is likely he tracked some contamination with him, probably on his hands and his inexperience in operating a GM detector. As for how he looks, it is probably a combination of poisoning from the thorium and beryllium that he was playing with and perhaps other chemicals and toxic metals that we haven't learned about. It may also be due to ingested contamination. A 1 microcurie alpha source doesn't mean much outside the body, but if it is ingested and can't be flushed from the body you are going to take massive biological damage.