Re: Russian dose or exposure unit the "ber"

["Ron L. Kathren" <rkathren@tricity.wsu.edu>]

Gene --

Your recollections about Herb Parker and his cold are generally acurate and
described in the book "Herbert M. Parker:  Contributions to Radiological and
Health Physics" published by Battelle Press.  As for the "ber" it seems
vaguely familiar but my memory has failed in my old age, and thus far I have
not been able to locate a reference to this unit in my library.

Sorry,

Ron


----- Original Message -----
From: Carbaugh, Eugene H <gene.carbaugh@pnl.gov>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2000 3:47 PM
Subject: Russian dose or exposure unit the "ber"


>
> Peter & Radsafe
>
> Since you asked for clues:  may I suggest that "ber" stood for "biological
> equivalent roetgen?"
>
> In the early Hanford days, Herb Parker (who, by the way,  hired K.Z.
Morgan at
> Oak Ridge and then went on to head up the Hanford Site "health physics"
> organization) coined the terms rep and reb as acronyms for roentgen
equivalent
> physical and roentgen equivalent biological, respectively.  The story goes
that
> following a class given to a group of Hanford engineers at which he had
> carefully explained the differences between a physical absorbed dose and a
> biologically effective dose (absorbed dose X RBE), he was greeted with
nothing
> but confused expressions and an obvious confusion on the part of the
students.
> It was then he realized that there is no audible difference between "rep"
and
> "reb" when one has a cold and a completely plugged nose (which he had at
the
> time).  After that he started using the obviously different sounding terms
"rad"
> and "rem."  My recollection is that this occurred somewhere in the late
1940s,
> and Parker documented it in a speech he gave at a Health Physics Society
> function that was published in the journal some 15 or 20 years back.  I
thought
> I had a copy in my "history" file, but I couldn't find it just now.  At
any
> rate, the analogy to a possible "ber" seems reasonable.  Ron Kathren -
where's
> your memory when I need it?
>
> Gene Carbaugh, CHP
> Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
>
> Peter wrote:
>
> I am reading "Red Atom", Paul Josephson,
> and in an early chapter some
> extremity exposures were cited as "ber".
> The text says something like, "Only
> a few percent exceeded 1.5 - 5 ber and
> the average exposure was 0.3 - .5 ber
> but the collective dose when working on
> the inner loop, armatures etc. was 100 to 500 ber."  Anybody have a clue?
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