[ RadSafe ] Radiation from xenon in california put in perspective

[Nathan Russell]

The bottom line is that the media need to shut up, or be much more
careful (especially using phrases like "second to Chernobyl" without
the context that makes it clear that the ratio isn't that far shy of
the "second-closest star to Earth").

Nathan

On Sun, Mar 20, 2011 at 12:38 PM, Michael LaFontaine, P. Phys.
<LCS at golden.net> wrote:
> 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.
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