[tomxor]

They are using different and not directly convertible units.

Roentgen (R) used by the instrument only measures exposure, but this is not the same as absorption which depends on the type of radiation, the type of biological tissue exposed, the duration of exposure etc. The parent is using Sv which measures absorption for the purpose of more usefully assessing biological risk. I'm not sure how the parent is converting them, there are probably some good rules of thumb.

[kris_wayton]

Here's a screenshot of the highest reading I saw (11.37) and an english overlay of possible units it can display. It's hard to see the button positions.

https://imgur.com/a/gl8NLqB

[Jeema101]

They're switches, and it looks like it's set to mSv/h based on your English overlay. So 11.37 mSv/h, or .01137 Sv/h - about 4 1/2 times the level of the typical background radiation.

[inejge]

The overlay gets that position wrong -- it's µSv/h (microsieverts, the transliterated legend is "mkZv/ch".) 11.37 mSv/h would be a radiological incident. The Australian lost density gauge capsule from a couple of days ago was 2-5 mSv/h.

[mrb]

Ah, that makes sense ! 11.37 µSv/hour is only about 28 times higher than background radiation.

[tomxor]

Hmm, 3 mSv is supposed to be the average annual background radiation absorption for humans [0], that's roughly 0.000342 mSv/h. Which would make 11.37 mSv/h 33245 times greater.

At the other end of the scale the minimum annual dose with a clear link to increased risk of cancer is supposedly 100 mSv [1]. But the risk is different depending on the distribution over time, so if we make it hourly for comparison that is 0.0114 mSv/h making this reading about 1000 times higher than that risk threshold (but the risk is over a year is effectively assuming continuous exposure).

Seconds or minutes isn't going to be terrible, but in only 9 hours leaning against it you would get a years worth of high risk cancer dose!... I'd stay away from the wall. happy to be corrected, this stuff is hard to interpret if you are not an expert. The falloff is really fast though, so it's basically harmless if you are just walking through... maybe the original intent was to stop people touching the walls :D like an electric fence without the need for power.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_radiation

[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Exposure...

[edit]

Fixed various calculations.

[mrb]

Background radiation is less than 3.5 mSv/year, or less than 0.0004 mSv/hour. So if these tiles radiate 11.37 mSv/hour that would be 28 000 times more than background radiation !