RE: Subject: RE: Bq soon

A question for the pro-SI crowd. How do you reconcile using a standard ion chamber type radiation detector that reads out in microSv / hr, and recording that reading as the exposure level? (I hope your answer doesn’t include a discussion of quality factors. Regardless of what you may know about beta & gamma radiation, the meter ain’t displaying microSv / hr)

I think this is my main discomfort with using SI units in that there is no useful conversion for Roentgens. If you are TRULY a proponent of SI, you should have a meter that reads out in Coulombs / kg-hr (or metric subunits thereof), and then try to work with that unwieldy number. Or else only use tissue equivalent meters.

-Brent Rogers

P.S. How many of you express your weight in Newtons?

-----Original Message-----
From: Ivor Surveyor [mailto:isurveyor@vianet.net.au]
Sent: Tuesday, 8 April 2003 6:38 PM
To: radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu
Subject: Subject: RE: Bq soon

To a person living outside of the USA it is a matter of amazement to find the bizarre combination of units used in American texts. For instance on a single page of a recently published text on Radiation Protection [ J. Shapiro 4th Edition] I found the student had to contend with a plethora of units.

On page 361:   Ft; Ft^2; Ft/min; Ft^3/min; cm^3/day; pCi/cc;   microCi/cc;   mCi; MBq

Or on page 372: 1 acre = 4,047 m^2; 1km^2 = 247 Acres; pCi/m^2-s
and a reminder to multiple mCi by 37 to obtain MBq, and pCi by 0.037 to convert to Bq; or Ci by 37 to obtain GBq.

Though out the book there is a continuous need to convert Sv to rem(s); Gy to rad(s); length in cm, ft or m and so on.

By the way in strict SI there is no place for the cm, cc, or cm^3. or use of "pleural forms for units.

I just wonder how this irrational jumble of old and new units is tolerated.   Surely more then one "Mars probe" must have gone astray, because of this confusing jumble?   I suspect that more then one author has developed a severe "headache" from proof reading of texts. The high quality of many American texts and publications are such as to have a great appeal to international readers     What a waste of intellectual effort is expanded in converting backwards and forwards from one system to the other, as one reads and studies papers, text books, or regulations.

I am not aware of any real problem in Australia or UK when we adopted the SI system, except perhaps a feeling of joyous relief.

Ivor Surveyor [isurveyor@vianet.net.au]

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