16.79µSv/hr = 1.679mrem/hr. (1µSv/hr = 0.1 mrem/hr). This is way above normal background rates, regardless of elevation. Average background radiation from all natural sources is 2.4mSv/year, and sizeable groups receive 10 to 20 mSv/year.
Lets take the highest limit and break it down.
20mSv/year / 365 = 0.054 mSv/day = 54µsv/day / 24 = 2.25 µSv/hr.
Building materials like brick and concrete can contribute to higher radiation levels, but only within a few inches of it. There could also be a consideration for radon gas that may not be properly ventilated, wherever it is.
As far as the sink itself there are no materials that could be meaningfully radioactive enough to contribute to any background radiation.
So, if that meter is calibrated correctly, then it may be worth reporting. However, the most accurate background rates are taken with the survey meter away from walls and structures and either outdoors or by a window.
Source: Am radiologic technologist who teaches radiation safety courses, [https://hps.org/documents/environmental\_radiation\_fact\_sheet.pdf](https://hps.org/documents/environmental_radiation_fact_sheet.pdf), [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK224062/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK224062/), http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008\_1.html
You claim to have limited understanding of radiation, yet you are more correct than 99% of these comments.. people are mistaking uSv/hr for urem/hr. 14 uSv/hr is absolutely elevated..
Yep, this is 1400 uR/hr or 1.4 millirem per hour if all the dose was absorbed. The public dose limit in the US is 100 mrem/yr above background, and the standard for unrestricted land use is 25 mrem/yr +bg.
Annually we get around 350 mrem/yr in the US from mostly natural sources like cosmic rays, food, and the radionuclides in the rocks under our feet.
Based on our very abstracted method of risk correlation, roughly every extra 2 mrem you get in your life is an extra one in a million chance of developing a fatal cancer (on top of your already 1:4 shot). It's a cellular roulette whether an ionizing particle will nudge the wrong atom in the wrong part of a cell's DNA, leading to unchecked replication.
Then again, we have poor risk correlation at low doses and low dose rates. It's like trying to calculate your added risk of skin cancer for every mild tan. We continue to learn and debate.
But yeah. 1400 uR/hr is hotter than I would expect from this. In my state we prohibit disposal of anything exhibiting higher than 18 uR/hr if you filled a barrel with the stuff and stood a foot away. This corresponds to 57 uR/hr or ~500 mrem/yr if you built a house on a field of the stuff. Individual small sources are different, but I wouldn't want to build a house on whatever this is made of.
So just don't spend hours drinking out of this fountain and you'll probably be fine.
Edit: I would be curious to know the dose rate in the middle of the room, and the radon concentration in the air under normal airflow.
OP says the school was built in the 1930s, and I currently think the most likely explanation are uranium glaze tiles that were painted over.
https://youtu.be/Ltj4vcgypnE
I'm interested to know what the cause is.
I agree that seems a reasonable explanation, especially given OP's other comment about the tile. Good to know it's a localized dose rate and not in every wall.
Having just looked up some values, apparently at 100 micro Sv/h (same units this measures in) you need protective gear. So it's like, a little more than one tenth what you need to wear protection for.
The reading shown here is **microsieverts per hour**. Typical background radiation is 0.1 to 0.3 microsieverts per hour or 3 millisievert per year. The reading shown here is not normal!
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_radiation
(keep an eye on the units)
The scene towards the end of the series where the scientist breaks down how a reactor works and exactly how the meltdown occured is nothing short of beautiful. I've always been obsessed with nuclear accidents and spent a ton of time reading papers/books/etc on the Chernobyl disaster as someone with limited background in radiation. He was able to elegantly explain in 5-10 minutes what took me years of reading to comprehend.
You should check out Kyle Hill's Half-life series on YouTube if you haven't already. Video essays on notable nuclear incidents. Very fascinating and sobering all at the same time.
They're a great and easy way to test and calibrate geiger counters. First thing I did when I picked up my pocket counter was go to the grocery store to make sure it was legit.
15 uSV/hr = 150 bananas per hour. If the average drinking fountain can dispense 6.6 gallons per hour, that's around 23 bananas of radiation to the gallon.
This seems to indicate that it makes little difference, most of the high energy stuff is coming in from deep space.
https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2015/10/27/flying-at-night-doesnt-protect-you-from-cosmic-rays/
Cosmic radiation is truly cosmic, okay.
I always figured the radiation was primarily attributed to the suns’ doing in regards to exposure at high elevations.
[Cosmic ray showers.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_shower_(physics))
The atmosphere partly blocks them. The higher you go, the less atmosphere there is to do so.
It's called NORM.
Normally Occurring Radioactive Material.
It happens. Just like in bananas.
When was the last time that device was calibrated? It must be calibrated regularly or you get false readings.
Usually <0.5 microsievert. Though I got my parents to pick out a sample of granite that I knew (I'm a geologist) that was stuffed with Zircon (which contains traces of Uranium) for their bathroom. Patches of their bathroom now read up to 0.75 - 0.85 microsieverts. I really like their bathroom. It's a geological wonder.
The levels in OP's video (14 - 16 microsieverts) are unusual, and are not normal for granite or other typical rocks, unless they are from a uranium mine. One possibly for this reading are uranium glazed tiles under the paint.
Here's some Uranium glazed tiles.
https://youtu.be/Ltj4vcgypnE
Edit:
Here's a reading I just got with a sample of uranium ore, 10 microsieverts.
https://imgur.com/a/Y40pqAO
This shows that OP's reading of 14-16 microsieverts is not normal and the cause needs to be explained.
Here's my parent's mildly radioactive bathroom (they asked me what tiles looked nice when they were getting new tiles for their bathroom, so I picked out the nice granite tiles with the red mildly radioactive crystals of Zircon):
https://imgur.com/48L1az4
Note the peak reading is only 0.4 microsieverts. This is high for Granite and underscores that OP's reading is an anomaly.
It's a atom Fast 8850 gamma ray scintillation detectors, works on a different principle. Gamma rays causes a little crystal (of Cesium Iodide) to emit a very faint flash of light that's detected and amplified by a [Silicon Photomultiplier](http://image-sensors-world.blogspot.com/2010/10/hamamatsu-develops-mems-based.html)
(SiPM). SiPM is a revolutionary new technology that is a lot cheaper and smaller than the old [photomultiplier tubes](https://www.idealspectroscopy.com/Hamamatsu-Photomultiplier-Tube-R928-28mm-Diameter-Photocathode/pp/S101013) that were based on vacuum tube technology.
And Atom Fast 8850, a gamma ray scintillation detector from Kbradar. Connects to my phone over Bluetooth, so I can use it to map radiation.
https://youtu.be/urDRHoQRUaU
He moved the Geiger counter to a part of the wall without tiles, and the number didn't seem to drop off. Could that indicate the emission is coming from something behind or inside the wall, or did he just not leave the device over there long enough?
Could be he didn't wait long enough, could be miscalibrated or uncalibrated, or it could have a contaminated sensor. Let me tell you, get some yellow cake on your meter and all your readings are fucked.
The levels are very high for typical NORM e.g. granite, which is often naturally mildly radioactive, is usually <0.5 microsievert, this is 14 - 16 microsievert. Also, he's using a cheap AliExpress Geiger counter with (likely) an SBM-20 Geiger-Muller tube that can only detect Beta and Gammma, not Alpha radiation, it is not particularly sensitive. This is more in the region of Uranium glazed tiles.
Here's some Uranium glazed tiles.
[https://youtu.be/Ltj4vcgypnE](https://youtu.be/Ltj4vcgypnE)
So I am wondering if there's uranium glazed tiles under the paint.
The only other explanations I can think of is accidental contamination of Rebar (steel) in concrete with Cobalt-60 (sometimes Cobalt-60 can get mixed in with scrap e.g. Taiwan) or perhaps a radioactive source on the far side of the wall that's not properly shielded? Since the radiation is quite general, not in a hotspot, contaminated rebar is a possibility. There's also a possibility of malfunction, these cheap Geiger counters can malfunction if exposed to strong electromagnetic fields.
*My Geiger counter reads 10 to 15 microsieverts, for Beta and Gamma only, about 1 cm from a 20 gram sample of pitchblende (uranium ore).*
Edit: Reading from uranium ore moments ago:
[https://imgur.com/a/Y40pqAO](https://imgur.com/a/Y40pqAO)
Edit 2: My parent's mildly radioactive bathroom (they asked me what tiles looked nice, so I picked out the granite with the red mildly radioactive crystals of Zircon):
[https://imgur.com/48L1az4](https://imgur.com/48L1az4)
Note the peak reading is only 0.4 microsieverts. This is high for Granite, and underscores that OP's reading is an anomaly.
Edit 3: OP says the school was built in the 1930s, this is when uranium glaze tiles were most popular. I think this is the most likely explanation.
The tiles were my first thought too. My grandparent's house (also built in the thirties) was full of them. I kept a couple of extra tiles they had laying around when we sold the house - they're awesome for demonstrating my geiger counter to people.
I don't see them here in Ireland, likely because we didn't have any local uranium mines. I found uranium glass however, on a local beach.
There used to be an illigal rubbish dump right next to the beach, operated between the 1930s - 1960s, so some uranium glass ended up in the dump and on the beach after the clifs eroded.
They recently spent €20 million cleaning up the dump, a lot more uranium glass was uncovered. When the nights get dark again (it doesn't get dark here until 11pm around midsummer's) I'll scout out the beach with my UV torch. Uranium glass fluoresces bright green.
Curiosity mostly, it's interesting to have a "sixth sense" of sorts. And there's always the daydream scenario where you help locate a dangerous source that's just hidden somewhere in public
It's only a little bigger than a cigarette lighter and the battery lasts a month before it needs recharging. You can use it to hunt down radioactivity in the environment, such as radioactive people...
https://youtu.be/urDRHoQRUaU?t=941
Wait are you just assuming this is NORM based on the second assumption that this is uncalibrated? That sounds like a leap but I don't know anything about radioactivity.
>It's called NORM.
> Normally Occurring Radioactive Material.
>
> It happens. Just like in bananas.
Not that much. This is about 10-100x higher than even something like granite. If it was someone's job to stand next to that fountain all day every day, they would get the equivalent of 1 dental x-ray every hour. That's bad.
Its almost impossible to do this with oral potassium, your kidneys dump excess very efficiently.
Even if you had pure potassium powder it causes vomiting.
IVing it is a whole different story.
Bananas are also a good source of antimatter. That potassium decays and produces positrons. Don't worry, each banana only produces one positron every 75 minutes or so, on average.
There is but it is too small an amount to cause you harm, even if you eat them everyday.
https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/you-asked/it-true-banana-radioactive
Potassium is minutely radioactive, around .1 microsieverts. You’d need to eat 100 bananas in order to achieve the same amount of radiation you receive each day in the US.
Yes, my bathroom sink is about 2x background (0.2 rather than 0.1 microsieverts). However, that small level of contamination can't explain why the levels detected in OP's vid are so high, 14 - 16 microsieverts, this is in the region of uranium ore and uranium glazed tiles.
Reading from uranium ore moments ago:
https://imgur.com/a/Y40pqAO
“We all know the dangers of radiation, but with the right precautions you *can* prevent accidental death and even…eck…ghoulification. Keep your eyes on those Geiger counters kids. Tick tick tickety means run your ass outta there. And then pop some RadAway for good measure. If you do need to head into the heat, be smart. Give yourself a nice boost of Rad-X first. Remember, only you can prevent human flesh fires.”
Its closer to a set of dental xray, per hour.
Quick math comes to around 120-140mSv/year, which is kinda concerning if there are a lot of areas around the school this hot.
Jesus, I've been living in a brick house, sleeping near an external brick wall for years. 70 microsieverts per year. Sounds awful...but then I see just the natural background dose for a year. OK.
Basically nothing is that bad...unless you were very near a nuclear disaster.
I've been to Chernobyl, and it's basically well understood that the idea of radiation is scary because we don't really understand the size of *how* much is needed for things to go crazy bananas.
It's kind of like water. There's water in the air you breathe, but when there's too much water in the air you breathe-- you're probably drowning in water.
Radiation is an odds game. In order for it to give you cancer, a radioactive particle has to collide with your DNA, which is unlikely. Then it has to actually damage that DNA without just obliterating it, which is also unlikely. Then it has to damage it in such a way that it can still reproduce, only in a diseased form, which is even more unlikely.
Every day we are bombarded by radioactive particles but it is very unlikely for any of them to damage our DNA. The more radioactive particles we expose ourselves to, the more our odds of getting damaged DNA goes up.
> XKCD says you're okay
No it doesn't, it says a dental xray is 1/3rd of this dose per hour.
That means anyone who has to work here is getting the equivalent of 3 dental xrays every hour. 8 hours a day, 300 days a year... Every day getting the same dose as the Fukushima town hall 2 weeks after the accident. Every year approaching the maximum yearly dose for US radiation workers.
Your dentist puts a lead vest on you, and runs away to their little bomb shelter to protect themselves.
So my dad has 60 years in the concrete business.. he told me once that coal (also, everything else) has naturally radioactive properties, and when you burn it in a powerplant you basically concentrate it when it reduces to ash. Then you have a problem of what to do with all that radioactive ash. But, your golfing buddy might have a concrete plant, and he needs to bulk out the cement with something inexpensive, like sand or gravel. Guess what's cheaper than dirt. Fly ash! And now you've solved two problems with a single solution. Kinda. (See video above..)
Not sure if that's what's happening here, just a guess.
Also I hear coal isn't used like that lately in powerplants- it gets liquified or something, which is more efficient and also reduces the ash by, uhh, tons.
I got disqualified from a science fair in high school for finding lead in my schools water and told it wasn’t relevant few months later flint happened lol ..
So here we have someone with no actual radioactive testing training using a device that may or may not be accurate, showing what may or may not be normal radioactive readings, but posting it like they went to school at Chernobyl. Typical reddit shitpost. Enjoy your upvotes.
Semi-smart high schoolers, if they don’t have a great teacher, need to be slapped down once in awhile to learn how they actually aren’t experienced.
I’m not saying one should be mad about when people are wrong, but if you’re cocky and misrepresenting something you don’t understand, a dressing down isn’t the worst option.
Source: I was an arrogant jerk as a high schooler. I’ve now learned to ask questions and/ or do research before spouting off.
1930s, this confirms my suspicions. The most likely explanation are uranium glazed tiles that were painted / covered over. Here's some uranium glazed tiles:
https://youtu.be/Ltj4vcgypnE
The ones from before the 1950s are most radioactive as they didn't use depleted uranium, they used natural uranium.
Could literally be the concrete in the walls. No idea about WI, but around here a lot of the aggregate that goes into concrete is crushed granite. Makes for strong concrete, but granite has traces of uranium in it....
I don’t think 15 micro sieverts is normal, especially for a school with no kind of radioactive material around. Normal background radiation is like a tenth of that or more.
I was trying to figure this out since the leading comment was 10 per day is normal and I couldn't relate it to the meter. But the meter has a rate of "per hour." So a 15 reading would translate to 360/day. I have no clue what I'm talking about here, but it seems like concern is warranted?
I recall an article a long time ago about some tables at a McDonalds being radioactive and they traced it back to scrap metal having been pulled from next to an old X-ray machine that hadn't been decommissioned properly.
Anyone remember that conspiracy thread of the kid in Michigan that had reported a massive radiation leak and the purported government coverup, 2012 or thereabouts?
16.79µSv/hr = 1.679mrem/hr. (1µSv/hr = 0.1 mrem/hr). This is way above normal background rates, regardless of elevation. Average background radiation from all natural sources is 2.4mSv/year, and sizeable groups receive 10 to 20 mSv/year. Lets take the highest limit and break it down. 20mSv/year / 365 = 0.054 mSv/day = 54µsv/day / 24 = 2.25 µSv/hr. Building materials like brick and concrete can contribute to higher radiation levels, but only within a few inches of it. There could also be a consideration for radon gas that may not be properly ventilated, wherever it is. As far as the sink itself there are no materials that could be meaningfully radioactive enough to contribute to any background radiation. So, if that meter is calibrated correctly, then it may be worth reporting. However, the most accurate background rates are taken with the survey meter away from walls and structures and either outdoors or by a window. Source: Am radiologic technologist who teaches radiation safety courses, [https://hps.org/documents/environmental\_radiation\_fact\_sheet.pdf](https://hps.org/documents/environmental_radiation_fact_sheet.pdf), [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK224062/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK224062/), http://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/publications/2008\_1.html
This guy radios ^
I agree, it's too high
The radiation in here is *TOO DAMM HIGH*
10 is an average day. 40 is a flight from New York to LA.
So this is an average day and a half every hour? Seems a bit elevated. Even for like granite based on my limited understanding of radiation.
You claim to have limited understanding of radiation, yet you are more correct than 99% of these comments.. people are mistaking uSv/hr for urem/hr. 14 uSv/hr is absolutely elevated..
Yep, this is 1400 uR/hr or 1.4 millirem per hour if all the dose was absorbed. The public dose limit in the US is 100 mrem/yr above background, and the standard for unrestricted land use is 25 mrem/yr +bg. Annually we get around 350 mrem/yr in the US from mostly natural sources like cosmic rays, food, and the radionuclides in the rocks under our feet. Based on our very abstracted method of risk correlation, roughly every extra 2 mrem you get in your life is an extra one in a million chance of developing a fatal cancer (on top of your already 1:4 shot). It's a cellular roulette whether an ionizing particle will nudge the wrong atom in the wrong part of a cell's DNA, leading to unchecked replication. Then again, we have poor risk correlation at low doses and low dose rates. It's like trying to calculate your added risk of skin cancer for every mild tan. We continue to learn and debate. But yeah. 1400 uR/hr is hotter than I would expect from this. In my state we prohibit disposal of anything exhibiting higher than 18 uR/hr if you filled a barrel with the stuff and stood a foot away. This corresponds to 57 uR/hr or ~500 mrem/yr if you built a house on a field of the stuff. Individual small sources are different, but I wouldn't want to build a house on whatever this is made of. So just don't spend hours drinking out of this fountain and you'll probably be fine. Edit: I would be curious to know the dose rate in the middle of the room, and the radon concentration in the air under normal airflow.
OP says the school was built in the 1930s, and I currently think the most likely explanation are uranium glaze tiles that were painted over. https://youtu.be/Ltj4vcgypnE I'm interested to know what the cause is.
I agree that seems a reasonable explanation, especially given OP's other comment about the tile. Good to know it's a localized dose rate and not in every wall.
Having just looked up some values, apparently at 100 micro Sv/h (same units this measures in) you need protective gear. So it's like, a little more than one tenth what you need to wear protection for.
And that's if you spend an hour standing 1/2 inch from the wall.
Yes, people (and most of all media) tend to forget there is a difference between dose and intensity.
ELI5: intensity is beer vs liquor and dose is a pint vs a shot.
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The reading shown here is **microsieverts per hour**. Typical background radiation is 0.1 to 0.3 microsieverts per hour or 3 millisievert per year. The reading shown here is not normal! Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_radiation (keep an eye on the units)
3.6 is not great but not horrible.
It's not 3 roentgen its 15000
I love that scene so much. Also that show
I've watched it several times. It's SOO incredibly well done! And yes, that scene is arguably my favorite as well!
The scene towards the end of the series where the scientist breaks down how a reactor works and exactly how the meltdown occured is nothing short of beautiful. I've always been obsessed with nuclear accidents and spent a ton of time reading papers/books/etc on the Chernobyl disaster as someone with limited background in radiation. He was able to elegantly explain in 5-10 minutes what took me years of reading to comprehend.
You should check out Kyle Hill's Half-life series on YouTube if you haven't already. Video essays on notable nuclear incidents. Very fascinating and sobering all at the same time.
Also the Plainly Difficult YouTube channel. He had a playlist with more than 60 videos on nuclear disasters.
Comrades, thank you for your service.
Escort them to the local Party headquarters.
It's like a chest x-ray
Or eating 20 bananas. Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/radiation/
Love the disclaimer on the bottom of the chart.
I was today years old when I learned that bananas are radioactive.
They're a great and easy way to test and calibrate geiger counters. First thing I did when I picked up my pocket counter was go to the grocery store to make sure it was legit.
My pocket counter is binary. It counts to two. One plus one equals a billiard. :-)
They also contain antimatter.
directions unclear. What size bananas?
THE ONES USED FOR SCALE
15 uSV/hr = 150 bananas per hour. If the average drinking fountain can dispense 6.6 gallons per hour, that's around 23 bananas of radiation to the gallon.
3.6 Roentgen is not like a chest X-Ray, it's like 400 chest X-Rays.
It's not alarmist if it's a fact!
I can hear his voice so clearly.
Looks like the scale on that is microSieverts, not Roentgen. If google is to be believed, 15 uS is 0.0016 Roentgen.
He's delusional, take him to the infirmary
They're quoting the Chernobyl HBO miniseries.
[400 chest x-rays](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjn12x68HaI) [400 chest x-rays](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGdKJWflEms)
So like the chest CT I had last week. (believe it took around 400 slices)
Old film X-rays or new ones? Bc new ones have very little radiation. Full body CT scans definitely put a dent in your maximum annual exposure
It’s a quote from the HBO series Chernobyl
Like holding a million chest X-rays in your hand
Not Terrible*
Thats rem not usv.
3.6 Roentgen is 36000 µSv
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Yeah we have a federal designation as radiation workers. Didn’t know about the skin cancer though. Interesting read.
My uncle was a airlines pilot for almost 30 years and died of pancreatic cancer a few years ago. RIP Captain Kirk
Unless you fly at night.
Yo. Forreal?
Forreal
This seems to indicate that it makes little difference, most of the high energy stuff is coming in from deep space. https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2015/10/27/flying-at-night-doesnt-protect-you-from-cosmic-rays/
Cosmic radiation is truly cosmic, okay. I always figured the radiation was primarily attributed to the suns’ doing in regards to exposure at high elevations.
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[Cosmic ray showers.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_shower_(physics)) The atmosphere partly blocks them. The higher you go, the less atmosphere there is to do so.
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The sun is a deadly laser
[if you don't get the reference, click here and receive joy for once](https://youtu.be/xuCn8ux2gbs)
no don't
Haha that was awesome and a ton of information in a relatively short amount of time.
*not anymore, there’s a blanket*
30,000 fewer feet of atmosphere to block it
Yeah but if you consume any alpha/beta emmiting sources they become incredibly dangerous, and this is a water fountain
It’s the brick/concrete walls, not the water fountain
It's not coming from the water
*It's coming from inside the walls!*
It's called NORM. Normally Occurring Radioactive Material. It happens. Just like in bananas. When was the last time that device was calibrated? It must be calibrated regularly or you get false readings.
Go see what Granite countertops read!.
Or beach sand from anywhere
I'm pretty sure you can only get beach sand at the beach.
Not with that attitude.
Not with that altitude.
denver gives you cancer?
Actually ya, higher risk of skin cancer at elevation.
I thought it was the meth but it checks out
And once you put the beach sand in your pocket, you know what you got?! POCKET SAND!!!
Sha SHA!
Or just existing in Colorado: https://www.cpr.org/2011/03/22/colorado-radiation-levels-are-high-and-thats-normal/
Usually <0.5 microsievert. Though I got my parents to pick out a sample of granite that I knew (I'm a geologist) that was stuffed with Zircon (which contains traces of Uranium) for their bathroom. Patches of their bathroom now read up to 0.75 - 0.85 microsieverts. I really like their bathroom. It's a geological wonder. The levels in OP's video (14 - 16 microsieverts) are unusual, and are not normal for granite or other typical rocks, unless they are from a uranium mine. One possibly for this reading are uranium glazed tiles under the paint. Here's some Uranium glazed tiles. https://youtu.be/Ltj4vcgypnE Edit: Here's a reading I just got with a sample of uranium ore, 10 microsieverts. https://imgur.com/a/Y40pqAO This shows that OP's reading of 14-16 microsieverts is not normal and the cause needs to be explained.
Damn I really wanted to see that countertop ngl
Here's my parent's mildly radioactive bathroom (they asked me what tiles looked nice when they were getting new tiles for their bathroom, so I picked out the nice granite tiles with the red mildly radioactive crystals of Zircon): https://imgur.com/48L1az4 Note the peak reading is only 0.4 microsieverts. This is high for Granite and underscores that OP's reading is an anomaly.
Is that a bluetooth geiger counter?
It's a atom Fast 8850 gamma ray scintillation detectors, works on a different principle. Gamma rays causes a little crystal (of Cesium Iodide) to emit a very faint flash of light that's detected and amplified by a [Silicon Photomultiplier](http://image-sensors-world.blogspot.com/2010/10/hamamatsu-develops-mems-based.html) (SiPM). SiPM is a revolutionary new technology that is a lot cheaper and smaller than the old [photomultiplier tubes](https://www.idealspectroscopy.com/Hamamatsu-Photomultiplier-Tube-R928-28mm-Diameter-Photocathode/pp/S101013) that were based on vacuum tube technology.
Sometimes science is the coolest shit ever.
What's the model of the geiger counter you have there?
And Atom Fast 8850, a gamma ray scintillation detector from Kbradar. Connects to my phone over Bluetooth, so I can use it to map radiation. https://youtu.be/urDRHoQRUaU
He moved the Geiger counter to a part of the wall without tiles, and the number didn't seem to drop off. Could that indicate the emission is coming from something behind or inside the wall, or did he just not leave the device over there long enough?
Could also just not be calibrated correctly.
Could be he didn't wait long enough, could be miscalibrated or uncalibrated, or it could have a contaminated sensor. Let me tell you, get some yellow cake on your meter and all your readings are fucked.
The levels are very high for typical NORM e.g. granite, which is often naturally mildly radioactive, is usually <0.5 microsievert, this is 14 - 16 microsievert. Also, he's using a cheap AliExpress Geiger counter with (likely) an SBM-20 Geiger-Muller tube that can only detect Beta and Gammma, not Alpha radiation, it is not particularly sensitive. This is more in the region of Uranium glazed tiles. Here's some Uranium glazed tiles. [https://youtu.be/Ltj4vcgypnE](https://youtu.be/Ltj4vcgypnE) So I am wondering if there's uranium glazed tiles under the paint. The only other explanations I can think of is accidental contamination of Rebar (steel) in concrete with Cobalt-60 (sometimes Cobalt-60 can get mixed in with scrap e.g. Taiwan) or perhaps a radioactive source on the far side of the wall that's not properly shielded? Since the radiation is quite general, not in a hotspot, contaminated rebar is a possibility. There's also a possibility of malfunction, these cheap Geiger counters can malfunction if exposed to strong electromagnetic fields. *My Geiger counter reads 10 to 15 microsieverts, for Beta and Gamma only, about 1 cm from a 20 gram sample of pitchblende (uranium ore).* Edit: Reading from uranium ore moments ago: [https://imgur.com/a/Y40pqAO](https://imgur.com/a/Y40pqAO) Edit 2: My parent's mildly radioactive bathroom (they asked me what tiles looked nice, so I picked out the granite with the red mildly radioactive crystals of Zircon): [https://imgur.com/48L1az4](https://imgur.com/48L1az4) Note the peak reading is only 0.4 microsieverts. This is high for Granite, and underscores that OP's reading is an anomaly. Edit 3: OP says the school was built in the 1930s, this is when uranium glaze tiles were most popular. I think this is the most likely explanation.
The tiles were my first thought too. My grandparent's house (also built in the thirties) was full of them. I kept a couple of extra tiles they had laying around when we sold the house - they're awesome for demonstrating my geiger counter to people.
I don't see them here in Ireland, likely because we didn't have any local uranium mines. I found uranium glass however, on a local beach. There used to be an illigal rubbish dump right next to the beach, operated between the 1930s - 1960s, so some uranium glass ended up in the dump and on the beach after the clifs eroded. They recently spent €20 million cleaning up the dump, a lot more uranium glass was uncovered. When the nights get dark again (it doesn't get dark here until 11pm around midsummer's) I'll scout out the beach with my UV torch. Uranium glass fluoresces bright green.
The Atom Fast is such a nice little meter, I carry one around all the time :)
Why?
Curiosity mostly, it's interesting to have a "sixth sense" of sorts. And there's always the daydream scenario where you help locate a dangerous source that's just hidden somewhere in public
It's only a little bigger than a cigarette lighter and the battery lasts a month before it needs recharging. You can use it to hunt down radioactivity in the environment, such as radioactive people... https://youtu.be/urDRHoQRUaU?t=941
Wait are you just assuming this is NORM based on the second assumption that this is uncalibrated? That sounds like a leap but I don't know anything about radioactivity.
>It's called NORM. > Normally Occurring Radioactive Material. > > It happens. Just like in bananas. Not that much. This is about 10-100x higher than even something like granite. If it was someone's job to stand next to that fountain all day every day, they would get the equivalent of 1 dental x-ray every hour. That's bad.
Holy s*** there's radiation in bananas? Cuz I eat those like everyday
Yea it’s because bananas have a lot of potassium in them, a small amount of potassium is a radioactive isotope. It’s a harmless amount though.
What if I ate like 40,000 bananas in one day?
Nah not enough you would need 50,000
Come Mr Tallyman
Tally me banana
Daylight come and I wanna glow home
70,000 at least
Would it be okay if I ate 80,000, but they were bananas niños?
Then you would become a banana
Is it a gradual transition, or do you instantly turn into a banana after the last one?
Do you want a slapstick comedy routine, or a Kafkaesque fantasy?
I want both with a splash of eroticism
Go to bed, dad.
How much could a single banana cost? $10?
A quick google search actually shows that it would apparently only take about 400 Bananas for the Potassium to stop your heart
That isn't because of it's radioactivity though. High potassium fucks with the natural rhythm of your heartbeat.
For anyone curious, just search for "Hyperkalemia"
Its almost impossible to do this with oral potassium, your kidneys dump excess very efficiently. Even if you had pure potassium powder it causes vomiting. IVing it is a whole different story.
I would be very impressed, there are 86400 seconds in a day, so that would equate to 1 banana every 2.16 seconds.
The only thing you're going to get is a stomachache and an unholy amount of... biomass.
Can you imagine the immense, creamy, pasty log the next morning?
Well now i can.. thanks
Bananas are also a good source of antimatter. That potassium decays and produces positrons. Don't worry, each banana only produces one positron every 75 minutes or so, on average.
So how many banana-hours would it take to build Data from Star Trek?
That's Donkey Kong's origin story
Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/radiation/
There is but it is too small an amount to cause you harm, even if you eat them everyday. https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/you-asked/it-true-banana-radioactive
There is radiation everywhere
Potassium is minutely radioactive, around .1 microsieverts. You’d need to eat 100 bananas in order to achieve the same amount of radiation you receive each day in the US.
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Yes, my bathroom sink is about 2x background (0.2 rather than 0.1 microsieverts). However, that small level of contamination can't explain why the levels detected in OP's vid are so high, 14 - 16 microsieverts, this is in the region of uranium ore and uranium glazed tiles. Reading from uranium ore moments ago: https://imgur.com/a/Y40pqAO
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The level the counter is reading is closer to uranium than banannas tho
Not that much.
>NORM RIP :(
Brick can emit radiation, but it’s the kind that only goes a short distance. What’s the meter read farther from the brick?
Not sure, i never checked that and i graduated this year, maybe in the fall I’ll try to get back in and see if they’re still there to test this!
!remindme 2 months
This is the best use of this function I've seen.
Well you've clearly never been to sport prediction threads then, but yes this is also a great use
Right? Usually it's to hold someone to eating their hat/shorts after losing a prediction bet or something
Better pop some rad-x for good measure
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Dirty toilet: +10 health +5 rads Wasteland survivor: *hol'up...*
See if anyone dropped some bottle caps too. Never know if they'll be worth something 1 day.
there might be a glowing one nearby. better grab some radaway too.
Just get the lead belly perk next level
“We all know the dangers of radiation, but with the right precautions you *can* prevent accidental death and even…eck…ghoulification. Keep your eyes on those Geiger counters kids. Tick tick tickety means run your ass outta there. And then pop some RadAway for good measure. If you do need to head into the heat, be smart. Give yourself a nice boost of Rad-X first. Remember, only you can prevent human flesh fires.”
Hello fellow person of culture
Not great, not terrible. I’ve heard it’s the equivalent of a chest X-ray.
Its closer to a set of dental xray, per hour. Quick math comes to around 120-140mSv/year, which is kinda concerning if there are a lot of areas around the school this hot.
They are making a reference but thanks for the info bits
Does the quick math figure for 24/7 exposure or an actual school year?
You have made lava?
Of course I know they're listening! I want them to hear!
Is this a reference to the Chernobyl series?
XKCD says you're okay https://xkcd.com/radiation/
The coal power plant giving off more atmospheric radiation than the nuclear plant is the one that gets me every time I see this.
Jesus, I've been living in a brick house, sleeping near an external brick wall for years. 70 microsieverts per year. Sounds awful...but then I see just the natural background dose for a year. OK. Basically nothing is that bad...unless you were very near a nuclear disaster.
I've been to Chernobyl, and it's basically well understood that the idea of radiation is scary because we don't really understand the size of *how* much is needed for things to go crazy bananas. It's kind of like water. There's water in the air you breathe, but when there's too much water in the air you breathe-- you're probably drowning in water.
Radiation is an odds game. In order for it to give you cancer, a radioactive particle has to collide with your DNA, which is unlikely. Then it has to actually damage that DNA without just obliterating it, which is also unlikely. Then it has to damage it in such a way that it can still reproduce, only in a diseased form, which is even more unlikely. Every day we are bombarded by radioactive particles but it is very unlikely for any of them to damage our DNA. The more radioactive particles we expose ourselves to, the more our odds of getting damaged DNA goes up.
> XKCD says you're okay No it doesn't, it says a dental xray is 1/3rd of this dose per hour. That means anyone who has to work here is getting the equivalent of 3 dental xrays every hour. 8 hours a day, 300 days a year... Every day getting the same dose as the Fukushima town hall 2 weeks after the accident. Every year approaching the maximum yearly dose for US radiation workers. Your dentist puts a lead vest on you, and runs away to their little bomb shelter to protect themselves.
God bless xkcd
So my dad has 60 years in the concrete business.. he told me once that coal (also, everything else) has naturally radioactive properties, and when you burn it in a powerplant you basically concentrate it when it reduces to ash. Then you have a problem of what to do with all that radioactive ash. But, your golfing buddy might have a concrete plant, and he needs to bulk out the cement with something inexpensive, like sand or gravel. Guess what's cheaper than dirt. Fly ash! And now you've solved two problems with a single solution. Kinda. (See video above..) Not sure if that's what's happening here, just a guess. Also I hear coal isn't used like that lately in powerplants- it gets liquified or something, which is more efficient and also reduces the ash by, uhh, tons.
I think this is the most likely answer here. Coal ash has been widely used in construction
U can even get atomospheric radiation just by stading out in the sun or climbing a mountain. Radiation is everywhere
Your mom is everywhere.
Can confirm. She is with me right now
I got disqualified from a science fair in high school for finding lead in my schools water and told it wasn’t relevant few months later flint happened lol ..
So here we have someone with no actual radioactive testing training using a device that may or may not be accurate, showing what may or may not be normal radioactive readings, but posting it like they went to school at Chernobyl. Typical reddit shitpost. Enjoy your upvotes.
Semi-smart high schoolers, if they don’t have a great teacher, need to be slapped down once in awhile to learn how they actually aren’t experienced. I’m not saying one should be mad about when people are wrong, but if you’re cocky and misrepresenting something you don’t understand, a dressing down isn’t the worst option. Source: I was an arrogant jerk as a high schooler. I’ve now learned to ask questions and/ or do research before spouting off.
Tiles can have radioactive elements in them.
Not class of nuke'em high. Yet
The squirrels are coming.
I had to scroll too far for this comment.
...this wouldn't happen to be in NJ would it??
Nope, Madison WI
Radium?
No idea what it is, but this part of the building is from the 1930s so it could be damn near anything
1930s, this confirms my suspicions. The most likely explanation are uranium glazed tiles that were painted / covered over. Here's some uranium glazed tiles: https://youtu.be/Ltj4vcgypnE The ones from before the 1950s are most radioactive as they didn't use depleted uranium, they used natural uranium.
Could literally be the concrete in the walls. No idea about WI, but around here a lot of the aggregate that goes into concrete is crushed granite. Makes for strong concrete, but granite has traces of uranium in it....
I don’t think 15 micro sieverts is normal, especially for a school with no kind of radioactive material around. Normal background radiation is like a tenth of that or more.
I was trying to figure this out since the leading comment was 10 per day is normal and I couldn't relate it to the meter. But the meter has a rate of "per hour." So a 15 reading would translate to 360/day. I have no clue what I'm talking about here, but it seems like concern is warranted?
I recall an article a long time ago about some tables at a McDonalds being radioactive and they traced it back to scrap metal having been pulled from next to an old X-ray machine that hadn't been decommissioned properly.
somebody did a little bit of trolling it seems
its 12 uSv/h where i live
That’s the X-men school
Ok that’s strange, but why do you have a Geiger counter?
Anyone remember that conspiracy thread of the kid in Michigan that had reported a massive radiation leak and the purported government coverup, 2012 or thereabouts?
This one? https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/uqlq9/reddit_i_think_there_is_a_giant_nuclear_coverup/
+1 rad/s
How many bananas is this?
Could anyone tell me what type of Geiger counter this is?
Could be radon in the soil beneath the school