How can I conduct a nuclear experiment without purchasing expensive equipment?

[michael60622]

How could you conduct a nuclear eperiment? Is there a place you can go to or ask?

I was going to get some depression era glass and maybe a Cd-700 geiger counter off ebay. However I don't really want to calibrate or own the equipment. With this Japan incident going on picking a new one quickly seems impossible. So buying one then returning it seems unlikely.

 

[russ_watters]

Welcome to PF!

What kind of experiment, exactly, do you want to conduct?

 

[Bob S]

Uranium glass, used during the great depression, is a fluorescent green, and radioactive. I once went into an antique store with a black light, and found many glass items, some clear, that fluoresced. Most were radioactive.

Look at images and Geiger counter test in

http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1RNNN_enUS345&aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=uranium+glass

Bob S

 

[michael60622]

I was trying to figure out ways to clean up radio waste. I was told it has only been localised, never cleaned up.

One problem with the experiment is I want to use low level radioactive substance. But if I do the meter I will be using may read that its gone down but really it hasn't, its just the meter couldn't read it or the meter wasn't calibrated right in the first place.

 

[Drakkith]

I was trying to figure out ways to clean up radio waste. I was told it has only been localised, never cleaned up.

One problem with the experiment is I want to use low level radioactive substance. But if I do the meter I will be using may read that its gone down but really it hasn't, its just the meter couldn't read it or the meter wasn't calibrated right in the first place.

Which waste are you referring to exactly? The waste in Japan? If so, their primary objective is to contain as much of it as possible first while they try to keep the reactors cooled and such. And "cleaning up" radioactive materials simply gathers as much of it up as you can and placing it somewhere it can stay and decay without harming anyone or anything.

 

[michael60622]

Drakkith:
Pretty much right.

If I take low level of waste, clean it up someone may say well you actually didn't do anything because you meter is usless anyways.

Maybe I should get someone in Japan to try it?

 

[Drakkith]

Drakkith:
Pretty much right.

If I take low level of waste, clean it up someone may say well you actually didn't do anything because you meter is usless anyways.

Maybe I should get someone in Japan to try it?

I'm not understanding you very well. Do you have a meter already? Are you looking at getting one? What exactly are you planning on doing?

 

[michael60622]

I need the meter. I think I may just rent one this week. I decided not to try and make my own.

 

[Drakkith]

Alright. Good luck with your experiment then.

 

[minerva]

The eBay market for any kind of Geiger counter or any kind of radiological survey or monitoring instrumentation has gone absolutely insane since the Fukushima incident. So it's not really a good time to try and buy something yourself.

Prices are nuts, even for equipment that is essentially useless, such as high-range Civil Defense ion chamber meters, old quartz-fibre dosimeters without their chargers, etc.

Lots of people are buying gear that they don't need, gear that they don't know how to use and/or will not be able to use, and gear that will they will probably never see any reading on unless there is nuclear war, just because of their nuclear engineering and health physics illiteracy and fear, unfortunately.