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Radiation Detection Wrist Watch
luigi writes "I4U has this story: vigiWATCH is a newly created swiss company that offers the smallest, most precise radiation detector worldwide in a normal size wrist watch.
The watch displays current radioactivity rates from 0.00001mSv/h to 4.00000 mSv/h and cumulative radioactive dose from 0.001mSv/h to 9999 mSv/h. The precision is +/- 25% over total range.
Besides the radioactivity detection, its also showing the time in a digital and analog display. The watch looks like a normal casual wrist watch. Hope this watch never becomes standard equipment for survival on this planet.
The watch is sold on the site for $1100."
I've not read the specs myself, but hopefully that was a typo... +/- 25% is no where near precise, especially in a dosimeter.
Sig??? I don't need no stinkin Sig!
These might be useful for the UN weapons inspectors currently in Iraq. They could keep track of radiation without alerting any Iraqi authorities and get a true feel of whether there are weapons of mass destruction (specifically nuclear weapons) around.
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
I like this watch... just a damn shame that in the UK, no citizen is allowed to own anything resembling a geiger counter. The only places they are allowed are in schools or universities, or for authorities/companies with a 'good reason' to have one.
But the average joe shmoe on the street is not allowed to own one.
not necessarily, you can withstand far higher acute doses to your extremities than you can to your whole body.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
I can see plenty of people who work around radiation buying one of these. Light, convenient, and unobtrusive... what's not to like.
Radiologists, Medical physicists, Nuc. Med guys, Orthopedic surgeons (who use lots of fluoroscopy).
I don't do very much fluoro... but I have used it in the past to straighten fractured bones and place difficult catheters. Even so... I might consider one of these.
Also, never underestimate the awesome power of "gadget lust." Even for expensive gadgets, all that's required is a wee bit of rationalization as to how it MIGHT be useful in your job.
Could even be written off as a business expense...
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
The static electricity on your monitor can attract radon gas in the atmosphere. The radiation could come from radon, not your monitor, but its concentrates in front of your face. That means air ventilation is also a factor especially when the concrete of your building contains relatively large amount of radon.
If it was a big yellow civil defense counter (victoreen), then you damn well better not register anything from any radation source you have laying around, otherwise you are in big trouble.
Those counters are designed to measure radiation from about 100mREM to 500 REM accurately depending on model. This is several orders of magnitude higher than anything you would have from a high school science lab.
If it were sensitive enough a meter to measure such small amounts, it would be useless during a nuclear incident, where REMs are going to peak out in the several hundred/hr range, and diminish over the next few days to a few REMs/hr, at which time is begins to be safe to go outside for short periods. You can probably take about 50 cumulative REMs safely without getting sick. 100 is pushing it but you probably wouldn't die. The sick, elderly, and children are more suceptible, none of these numbers are absolute. The point is, these doses are many orders of magnitude times higher than your radiation sample.
See this link, for a survivalist site, it is a surprisingly well informed, accurate and unbiased assessment.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.