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by LorenPechtel
877 days ago
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And the flip side of this is I've seen security doing the same thing in the other direction. My wife set off a nuke scanner in Shanghai. To compound the problem the card from the lab (it was a nuclear heart scan) was sitting in the pocket of the jacket she planned to wear--and changed at the last minute. Despite that it was resolved with a little bit of conversation (admittedly, my wife speaks native-level Mandarin with a Shanghai accent), nobody did the simple test of waving around a geiger counter to see if it was her or something she had that was hot. (And to say something of the state of security--she passed through one US airport when 8x as hot and another when 4x as hot. A sufficiently sensitive detector could figure out that it's 140keV gamma rays and thus medical, but that's not the sort of thing that could be determined from a distance.) |
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Not to justify the experience, but I don't think the purpose of the test is to explicitly discriminate the difference between a person being hot or an item the person has being hot. The test is often used to identify people who work with nuclear materials, where then you want to determine if they are a nuclear worker, spy, terrorist, or simply a member of the public.
I'll also add that despite being really good at detecting radiation there's really high variance in how people respond to sources. I had a tritium keychain shipped from China a decade ago and it sat in customs for several weeks. The general public does not know the difference between radiation types or even understand levels. I highly doubt they are using sensitive detectors and just using a cheap Geiger Counter (which beta emitters will set off). I very highly doubt they are using neutron detectors.
Interestingly I bought the tritium on Amazon but it no longer seems like you can buy them there. There are several listings that __look__ like they sell them, but here's an illustrative example[0]. Note the last picture specifies the vial is not included. When you search Amazon you will come across a lot of phosphorous and certainly there are many sellers trying to pass this off as tritium. It looks like you can still buy uranium ore though...
[0] https://www.amazon.com/TEC-SCR-Isotope-Chain-Reaction-Aqua/d...
[Note] For those reading, tritium is perfectly safe. Radiation levels are not high enough to pass through skin and even light clothing will block it. A keychain is typically a very small quantity which is contained in a glass vial that is coated with phosphorous (to emit light, like a CRT monitor), and then contained in acrylic. I have personally tested that keychain and even let students use it as an extra credit in a radiation detection lab (they were asking about the safety). There is danger if you consume it or rub it in your eyes or genitals (or other soft body parts), but the amount you'd have for a keychain is very insignificant and poses zero risk. It's worth mentioning that tritium is going to be a gas, so if you break the vial it still will not represent danger unless you break it inside your mouth or right in front of your eyes (still likely low risk) due to the fact that it will quickly disperse (it is lighter than air). Tritium is fucking awesome and I wish production was a bit higher so we could have more access. It is commonly used in watch hands and gun sights but can essentially be used in anything you want to "permanently" glow in the dark. Half life is about 10 years but worth mentioning that you won't get a bright glow, but it will be easily identifiable at night or very low light conditions.