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Thank you to those that have replied.
I have also gotten a few replies off list. One off-list responder suggested
that I was an al Queda operative preparing for some kind of attack and my email
address is a meaningless indicator of my location. Perhaps a clarification
is in order:
I have to admit that, compared to the above scenario, I live a fairly
boring life. I am an instrument manufacturer and distributor, located in Canada.
My Email address and our website ends in .nu, because when we incorporated
Environmental Instruments Canada (EIC) all the good .com names were already
taken and, at the time, you had to jump through a lot of hoops to get a .ca
name (they have changed that system since). Getting a .nu name
(the top level domain for Niue) has the added benefit that I can
tell people the nu stands for nuclear.
This morning I got a phone call from someone who said he was from the
coastguard (would have been the east coast, judging by the time of day he
called) and wanted to know if the GammaMaster, which is a product that we
distribute but do not manufacture (see http://www.gammawatch.com ), would
detect "weapons grade material". Being quite possibly the world's worst
salesman, I said "no". Afterwards, I was going to calculate the dose rate, but
it would require a bunch of assumptions: amount of Pu, impurities, age of the
material and I figured that someone would have measurements.
If I really was an al Queda operative in possession of an A-bomb, why would
I not just measure the dose rate, rather than posting the question on a list?
The last time I checked, it was the A-bomb which is the restricted material, not
the Geiger counter.
I think it is a bad idea to consider the dose rate from a controlled
substance as top secret. How are companies, airports etc supposed to decide
what instrumentation they should get to protect themselves from the controlled
substance?
Kai
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