[ RadSafe ] Radiation from xenon in california put in perspective

[Michael LaFontaine, P. Phys.]

Nathan, I get a smaller value (2.4 pSv/day). I used a value of 10.06 
urem/h as mean background for CA.  Regardless, given Xe-133's 
half-life of 5.25 days, any panic in California would seem much ado 
about nothing,

Michael

At 11:53 AM 20/03/2011, you wrote:
>We don't seem to have a very good source for the amount of radiation
>detected from the Xenon picked up in California (I've seen things like
>"a billionth the amount that could be dangerous", but as a tie-in to
>the chart recently posted on XKCD,
>
>http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/03/19/radiation-chart/
>
>I wrote the following facebook comment:
>
>Ok, I think I saw an article about a "millionth of background"
>detected in California. So that would be 10 pSv/day. So if a square
>centimeter of blue is .3 uSv (300,000 pSv), which looks right
>eyeballing, it's 3,333 square microns. Or a ......square say 57
>microns on a side. A human red blood cell is about 7 microns in
>diameter, so an area of 38. Take 88 red blood cells, paint the tops
>blue, put them on that chart, and if I haven't screwed up any math,
>that's the daily dose to your friends in CA. On the day the xenon was
>detected.
>
>Please do check my math...  but hopefully someone can use it to
>further calm paranoia.
>
>Nathan
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Michael LaFontaine, P. Phys.