Im going to buy a digital geiger counter after i buy a laptop, but i have a few questions. The geiger counter: http://unitednuclear.com/geigers4sale.htm

Is a digital pocker counter. Im wondering, if it only picks up beta, gamma, and x-rays, then will i be able to find things emmiting alpha?

 

By this i mean, alot of low level background (like metal contamination, thoron lantern mantles, smoke detectors, and im sure tons of others stuff) is alpha. Im worried that the things emmiting this alpha, will be invisible from my detector. What i mean is that, from some things ive heard, whenever theres alpha radiation, theres alittle beta/gama being released as well. I hope this is true.

 

And what would the x-ray detection be good for? Do things like tv's emit low levels of x-rays? That would be cool to set up some kind of spark gap with a transformer and mesure the xrays being emmited.

Alphas are difficult to detect because they deposit their energy in a very short distance. They don't travel all that far in air, and are generally stopped by a very thin layer of solid material.

 

Gammas and x-rays are both photons; the only inherent difference is their source - gammas come from nuclear interactions and x-rays from atomic ones. But as such, gammas tend to be higher in energy, and some people end up classifying according to energy rather than source (> 1 MeV being a gamma, I think, for astronomers)

So if i take my geiger counter to the thrift store, im wondering, maybe ill find some radium clocks or something!

I was thinking of geting a geiger counter but i dont know what to get. the Inspector EXP Seems good. Anyway i want the geiger counter to find uranium so it needs to be very Sensitive anyone know what to get? (H2SO4 you may find Radiation there but nothing to high)

Im going to buy a digital geiger counter after i buy a laptop' date=' but i have a few questions. The geiger counter: http://unitednuclear.com/geigers4sale.htm

Is a digital pocker counter. Im wondering, if it only picks up beta, gamma, and x-rays, then will i be able to find things emmiting alpha?

 

By this i mean, alot of low level background (like metal contamination, thoron lantern mantles, smoke detectors, and im sure tons of others stuff) is alpha. Im worried that the things emmiting this alpha, will be invisible from my detector. What i mean is that, from some things ive heard, whenever theres alpha radiation, theres alittle beta/gama being released as well. I hope this is true.

 

if it`s anything like mine (and it sounds similar) then no, you`de have to be right ontop of an alpha source and even then you`ll only get a few counts per min above normal and it`ll take a few mins before you realise.

it`ll be shop closing time before you`ve looked at half the stuff there and tested it