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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."
when you would rather just not know... Like just how many rads that 19" monitor is blasting into your little soldiers...
I've got nothing...
Tournament Management Online &
To replace my wrist mounted poison gas sensing canary.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
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!
This is cool, but do I really want to be in a situation where my watch actually goes off? I mean, at that point, wouldn't I want to be wearing so much protective gear that a watch is a bit out of the question?
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
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
Me thinks that if current rates are in mSv/h, then cumulative doses should drop the temporal dimension, ie, mSv (no /h)!
-- Samir Gupta, Ph. D. Head, New Technology Research Group, Nintendo Co. Ltd., Kyoto, Japan.
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.
21) You post "too much slashdot" lists to slashdot, and in true open-source style, invite others to add to it.
Sure it might be great for small quantities that aren't going to kill you, but think about it... it's a watch, on your wrist.
If your watch told you it got a dose of lethal radiation... by extension, you did as well. By that time, you could equally judge the lethality of the radiation by the peeling and burning skin all over your body.
So I don't see this as warning you of danger, as it might be a bit late by the time it beeps at you.
I can't seem to find any other images of the watch anywhere on that website or elsewhere on the web for that matter. The angle it's at hides the thickness of the watch.... it could be 3/4 of an inch thick =/
-Berj
What does it mean if the watch starts glowing green, and melts? Do they have a little voice that says "Congratulations! Now you're the Hulk"?
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
Nope. Those are _MICRO_Sieverts, not millisieverts. That's 0.0001 mSv/hr. You'll still see it on that watch, supposedly.
:)
However, if memory serves me, the average north american feels between 360 and 640 millerem annually (depending on whether or not you smoke). A rem is 0.01 Sievert, so 360 millirem = 3.6 mSv. There are about 8760 hours / year, which gives about 0.0004 mSv/hr. (Did I screw anything up there?)
However, the most important thing in my mind is that the wearer of the watch will become very aware of just how pervasive and natural a small amount of radiation really is. Maybe if everyone wore one, we wouldn't have the misinformed paranoia that accompanies the word "radioactive"
In any field, find the strangest thing and then explore it. -John Archibald Wheeler
Well, that watch isnt exactly new.... its sold on this website for way less Actually only 337.20 Here is the link: http://pro-resources.net/watch.htm
Uhmm ... maybe that may upset the readings ... nevermind.
Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
I worked security at a department of energy lab for about a year. There were a few radioactive zones in, near, and around the particle accelerator, and all were well marked, but there were certain spots where I definately would have felt better if I had something that could tell me the radiation level in the area. Security was always first on the scene in case of fire or accident, and you never knew just what could have been destroyed to the point of allowing radiation to leak out. Radiation wise, nothing real bad ever happened, but that was the scariest part of working there sometimes, the radiation that you can't see, smell, or feel.
BTW, they'd probably post the price because it is interesting and good to know. If you don't have $1100 lying around, why bother clicking through to see how much the price is?
*beep, beep, beep*
Guess it's time for my....HOLY SHIT!
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 LCDs in iMac's have one of the highes't radiation outputs of any.
I think your foil helmet needs changing.
I'm at the cap, I'll give you some, just don't post misinformation.
Professional dosimeters have an average accuracy of +/- 10%.
25% is not considered bad, especially as these are not meant to be used for inspections. From the website:
Our aim is to help various professionals measure and control the radiation dosis they may be exposed to in a convenient, discreet and continuous way. These professionals can be radiologists, dentists, medical staff, nuclear power plant staff, waste professionals, military, customs and for those who want to know!
For uses such as these, +/-25% is definately accurate enough.
You could have gotten free karma much easier if you posted that their technical page contained the following: * all data may be subject to change without notice
Now THAT is a reason for worry.
but that was the scariest part of working there sometimes, the radiation that you can't see, smell, or feel.
:)
As opposed to that really visible, smelly textured radiation?
(ok, I just thought a bit more, and I suppose a hot acrid lava of molten core would probably assault all your senses and be a good indication that it carried a little radiation... for a moment or two anyhows
I have an Indiglo Datalink, so my watch gives off radiation, and reads computer screens. It was also less than $80 5 years ago.
Who got the better deal, me or the shumck who know how many rads they got?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
However, most of these don't emit enough to be harmful. Working in an area with radioactive materials tends to have higher background radiation, as does going on frequent flights or other high altitude operations.
Radiation is only dangerous in large, very easily detectable doses. And unless its an extreme amount, you can even take short term exposure to a relatively large amount and suffer few ill effects. You wouldnt want to stay long in such a hot environment though.
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Wasn't there an Asimov story with a radiation-detecting watch? I think it was in one of the foundation series novels. The main guy's college dorm room was blown up by a radioactive bomb, but later he figured out that it was staged because his watch didn't register any radiation. The watchband was the indicator, I think. It turned from blue to white or vice versa. Asimov was so great at predicting future technologies. What was that book? It's bugging me now and googling didn't help...
Just because you don't have a thorough, or even cursory, knowledge about everything in the world doesnt mean something is useless.
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Too bad thats not how radiation works. If you ever were near a large source of radiation your own clothes would absorb radiation and keep it coming to your body. One of the most important parts of a nuclear fallout shelter is the entrance room where you take off ALL clothing and shower. Your clothes and aything else you wear if you were near a nuclear explosion would continue the damage if not taken off immediatly.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
I had it ten years ago- it's in my parents' house somewhere. It was originally marketed to the general public during the early sixties, right after the Cuban Missile Crisis. Maybe someone else has seen one. It was heavy and yellow, with a handle that hung over the dial. It had three sensitivity settings- 100, 10, and 1 of some unit that I can't remember- maybe mrad/hour. (Radiation dosage units are confusing as hell.)
Either it didn't work at all, or the sensitivity was ridiculously low. I stuck a cobalt-60 source (one of those orange disks you see in highschool and college labs) right underneath it on its finest setting and the needle didn't even budge! Either they didn't understand radiation well back then, or someone was making a fortune during the Cuban Missile Crisis selling fake Geiger counters.
This would have been nice to know about before Christmas...
Very cool. One feature I'd like to see in the next version of this watch is some sort of hook-up to a computer that would let you record good data on long-term exposure. Still, I want one of these.
As far as measuring your total dosage goes, I might as well take this opportunity to inform everyone that government mandated radiation standards are mostly erroneous. By orders of magnitude even. We now know that low-level radiation is simply far less harmful (and far better understood) than we thought it was in the 1950's. Major reason is that the 1950's model is simply a straight line extrapolation from the known lethal dosage. Back then, that was a reasonable guess considering the knowledge of genetics at the time. Needless to say, our current understanding is quite different.
5-25 rad: No observable effects.
25-75 rad: Chromosomal aberrations and temporary depression of white blood cell levels in some individuals. No externally observable effects.
75-200 rad: Vomiting in 5 to 50% of exposed individuals within a few hours. Fatigue and loss of appetite. Moderate blood changes. Recovery within a few weeks.
200-600 rad: For doses over 300 rem, all exposed individuals will exhibit vomiting within 2 hours and loss of hair after 2 weeks. Severe blood changes with hemorrhage and increased susceptibility to infection, particularly at higher doses. Recovery from 1 to 12 months for individuals at the lower end of the dose range; only 20 percent survive at the upper end of the range.
600-1000 rad: Vomiting within 1 hour, sever blood changes, hemorrhage, infection, and loss of hair. From 80 to 100% of exposed individuals will succumb within 2 months; those who survive will be convalescent over a long period.
Introduction to Nuclear Engineering (Lamarshe)
Ooh, I see a new item accessory in the making :)
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
... the green, glow in the dark watch-hands causing the +/-25%?
be fare, that's a generalization, i hate america just as much as any other non-american, the catch is, i'm american. i hate the fact that we're facist. i hate the fact we're racist. i hate the fact we meddle in the affairs of others. i hate capitalism. i hate critics, such as yourself, and those worse than you. i hate your generalization that because i'm american, i must be bad. i love the fact that i don't hate you for your misconception, but i hate the fact that you'll never understand why i don't.
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
What is with all you hippies? There will never be a time when we all have to commute in haz-mat suits driving airtight cars with their own oxygen source... There may be enough neuclear force to destroy the world, but even nations as angry and stupid as North Korea or Iraq wouldn't do THAT much damage... Sure it is possible that in the future we will have to worry about bombs destroying our homes or something... but it will be a while before and take a lot to come to nuclear war.
Another thing to know, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they can live and walk freely even today with very little above-normal exposure to radiation. Radiation dissipates fairly fast if it isn't continually agitated by further radiation.
You will have to worry about having to walk around with a sunscreen-sprinkler continually protecting you from a hole in the ozone layer (which by the way has been shrinking steadily since 2000 as was told here on slashdot) before you have to worry about a fallout (the game) like scenario.
Erutangis ym si siht.
One of the most important parts of a nuclear fallout shelter is the entrance room where you take off ALL clothing and shower.
Leading to the popular Cold War pickup line "Hey, baby, want to see my fallout shelter?"
May we never see th
ever wonder why the world hates you guys?
Well, I *did* wonder whether it was what you mentioned or the puppet governments we were trying to set up in Iran and Vietnam, but it seems that you've cleared that up.
May we never see th
You said: " Too bad thats not how radiation works. If you ever were near a large source of radiation your own clothes would absorb radiation and keep it coming to your body. One of the most important parts of a nuclear fallout shelter is the entrance room where you take off ALL clothing and shower. Your clothes and aything else you wear if you were near a nuclear explosion would continue the damage if not taken off immediatly.
Your description of radiation and contamination is a little hairy, let me clean it up:
Radiation is the propogation of energy over a distance via waves. Some types of radiation are (using the example of a nuclear bomb): neutrons (very hazardous--you need to be in a deep fallout shelter or surrounded by a significant amount of water to protect you), alphas (very hazardous--are shielded by your skin, but if they are emitted inside your lungs you are in trouble), betas (minor hazard--shielded by your clothing, not a real problem unless ingested or inhaled), EM radiation in general (the frequency; therefore, the energy of the photon is of prime concern: a radio wave will probably not hurt you but a high energy gamma will--shielded by being in a fallout shelter as long as its deep enough), and non-interacting (like neutrinos--you don't have to worry about these, they can't hurt you). This watch will detect gammas and maybe some other high energy EM radiation (neutrons require larger detection devices, and alphas and betas would be shielded by the metal of the watch). I doubt it can detect as low energy as x-rays, but it might.
Contamination is getting radioactive material on you. This radioactive material will undergo decays producing radiation. You take your clothes off and shower to remove the contamination so you don't get irradiated.
Radiation (with the exception of neutrons and alphas) does not beget long term radiation (longer than for example a gamma to be absorbed by an atom and re-emit a lower energy gamma). Its just absorbed and thats the end of it. Neutrons and alphas will typically not beget long term radiation because of the specialized conditions required (causing fission of an atom and releasing radioactive products or being absorbed and transmuting an atom into a radioactive isotope). The contamination on your skin and clothes will be due to fallout (i.e. radioactive material) from the nuclear weapon, not the radiation.
Suddenly, the hairy finger of a familiar monkey tapped me on the shoulder. It was time.--G. T.
thank you... you explained it in way more words than i was willing to write... aslo i dotn proofraed my posts
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
True for a lot of people working near nuclear reactors. Photographic style dosimeters (a piece of film shielded by different layers of metal) are very common. I think even hospital workers in X-ray have to use them.
Unless this is recent, this is just wrong. People are allowed to own Geiger Counters. Why wouldn't they be?
Maplin used to sell a kit until a few years ago to make one. Second hand militaty units are available on many sites. Scientific suppliers often carry them.
Also, a dosimeter is a different device to a Geiger counter. Is the watch still illegal?
I should imagine that if this were like anything else, then dealers would get in a lot more trouble than the buyer, and I have never heard of that happening.
I sometimes think that environmental conciousness will come not because of any actions by activists but because we will develop personal, portable and cheap pathogen detection technology. This would let people know just how much of each toxin was present in their environment. There would still be arguments about what amount constitutes a dangerous exposure, but if I only get 1 PPM of dioxin at home and 100 PPM at work, I'm going to start looking for another job.
Are there any more personal detection devices like this on the market?
Perhaps what we need is a site the provides plans and techniques for detecting various poisons. There could also be a section to rate your town. Of course it would probably become competitive. Imagine the headlines; Local chess club dumps toxic waste. "We wanted to make the toxic top ten" says club president at his arraignment.
I have no idea how accurate the movie was, but in K-19, the reactor techs who made repairs inside the reactor area were shown to be puking and showing signs of hemorrhage within 10 minutes. Are we talking on the order of 1000 rad here? Anyone know of any data on the exposure of the rest of the crew?
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
Heavy sales of this product indicate mass paranoia. If this thing sells well. Invest in tin-foil hat and body suit tailoring company.... Perfect.
I wish there was some there was some way that I could be outside playing basketball, in the rain, and not get wet.
Let George Bush start his little nuclear war, and it will be! Seriously folks, there is a faction in the Religious Right who believe that only a nuclear war will fulfill the Revelations prophesy, and bring Jesus back. And they WANT ONE. Scary stuff!
Dog is my co-pilot.
So, you will have "1000% warning" of radiation, will it help? It works at light speed! The radiation. You will run away?
Try to make your goverment a bit peaciful instead.
Like, not bombing Iraq for sake of 3-4 petrol companies.
Why the heck would it be useful around Chernoble?
"Woah! My 500$ watch is picking up radiation!"
'No kidding genius, where have you been?'
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Also, we are talking EM radiation here, not nuclear. There is a difference.
Yeah, it's unclear what the original poster thinks that he's going to be getting "nuked" by.
Actually, several kinds of radiation leave a monitor, though it's only the last two that tend to cause worry:
X-rays are ionizing radiation and are known to be carcinogenic and mutagenic. They're essentially man-made gamma rays. Geiger counters do tend to count them, though it depends on their energy.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
An AC wrote:
> Maybe not North Korea but what about the US?
> Especially with that trigger happy president only
> thinking about the axis of evil and terrorism.
Representatives from our esteemed allies, Japan and South Korea, will be visiting with our fearless leader next week. Hopefully they will share with him some tips on the fine arts of diplomacy and peace.
At the moment, our country and North Korea are using the time honored technique employed by angry children of talking to each other through a third party. I do not think this is working at all.
"The path of peace is yours to discover for eternity."
Japanese version of "Mothra" (1961)
Maybe if everyone wore one, we wouldn't have the misinformed paranoia that accompanies the word "radioactive" :)
No, we'd just have a bunch terrified people phoning some government agency every time they saw the level "jump" from 0.0003 mSv/hr to 0.0005 mSv/hr.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I think your foil helmet needs changing.
You make it sound like a diaper! LOL
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
It'd be cool if this thing came with a glow in the dark radium face.
-josh
Don't forget the suit that has a voice telling you what it's doing to protect you.
. morphine...administered."
"Warning....major...fracture...detected...BEEP BEEP BEEP...Emergency...medical...system...activated..
The wearable devices are mostly gamma detectors. More useful, for the paranoid, would be an air sampler that detects alpha and beta emitters. If you're worried about terrorist-type attacks, they're more likely to be in the form of airborne radioactive particles than from a big gamma source.
One of the things Homeland Security was supposed to be doing was putting radiation detectors into every fire station in America. That doesn't seem to have happened, and it should.
I think they were outside the core, but inside the containment vessel. Not that I know tons about nuke power plant architecture. But the movie showed them being exposed to steam which I assumed was moving through pipes in the reactor core.
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
A geiger counter in a wrist watch? Come on, James Bond had one of those in the movie Thunderball, back in the 1960s.
-- Alastair
Actually, the old "film badges" have largely been replaced by devices called thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLDs). They are made of a material which, when struck by radiation, goes into a metastable excited state. The badge is processed by heating it up, causing the molecules that had been excited to drop back to the ground state. In the process, a photon is emitted, which is detected by a photomultiplier tube. Your radiation dose is proportional to the number of photons counted. The advantages of a TLD over a film badge are that it tends to more precise for very small doses, it can be processed faster if you have the equipment on-site, and it's reusable.
Since when do cigarettes give off radiation?
c er.rad.html
Tobacco contains large amounts of polonium-210 which is radioactive.
A smoker who smokes 1 pack a day gets the equivalent of something like 200-500 chest x-rays in a year.
Some links:
http://www.no-smoking.org/may00/05-19-00-1.html
http://www.ringnebula.com/peds_paper.htm
http://nepenthes.lycaeum.org/Drugs/THC/Health/can
If you're interested in estimating your yearly radiation dose, check out:
http://newnet.lanl.gov/main.htm
Compare the dose from a plutonium powered pacemaker with that from smoking one pack of cigarettes a day -- cigarettes give you about 10 times as much radiation as the pacemaker.
--in these days of terrorism, this watch could give someone an immediate headsup to evac any area that has become dangerous from perhaps a "dirty" radiological device or just from some *insane goon* spreading radioactivity in some manner. Maybe well before any "official" word of an attack is released on the radio, etc. And after an attack it would be useful for noting hotspots and relatively "cleaner" areas to avoid or travel in. Too bad it's so expensive I would get one to add to my survival/preparedness supplies.
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.
That was pretty much our assessment when we couldn't get it to work. I typed "Victoreen" into images.google.com to see what I recognized- it was a Victoreen model 715. And now the picture reminds me- the units were Roentgens/hr (on the "X1" setting- the switch had X100, X10, X1, and X0.1 positions).
The manual for this thing was pretty scary.
I went to the Trinity site opening this last October - it would have been fun to have had this watch then as I wandered around the site of the first nuclear blast.
I can think of some people that this would be useful for - anybody who works in caves. Due to naturally occuring uranium in granite, all caves with poor air circulation exhibit increased levels of radon. In fact, the National Parks Service workers at Carlsbad Caverns wear dosimeters, and are not allowed to work there longer than a couple of months before being rotated out, to limit their exposure.
www.eFax.com are spammers
I'd much have prefered radiation be stinky, at least then I'd know i was in trouble. Kinda along the same lines of them putting an artificial smell in natural gas.