Re: Electric chairs in our homes?

[WALKIEWICZ@edinboro.edu]

I'm not familiar with the work at Los Alamos on racquetballs becoming
radioactive, but I published a paper with a student in the January
1992 issue of The Physics Teacher.  I called the paper "Radioactiveball"
and show a decay curve with an effective half-life of 44 minutes due to
activity on a handball used for 50 minutes, with an initial activity
above background of 550 counts/5min using a Geiger counter.  Typical
radon levels in the handball/racquetball court was measured at about
1.5 pCi/l using both charcoal canisters and a femto-TECH continuous
monitor.

Then in the May 1993 issue of The Physics Teacher, I had a letter to
the Editor published with a colleague who took data while he participated
in a local racquetball tournament.  We postulated that higher levels of
competition would keep the ball moving faster, thereby collecting more
daughter products, and producing a "hotter" ball.  The data verified
this correlation by 96 net counts/5min for Men's class C level, up to
595 net counts/5min for the Men's Open level.  We weren't about to
repeat this experiment since we already proved our point.  Why ruin
good results by repeating an experiment!

I then published "The Hot Balloon (Not Air)" in the September 1995 issue
of The Physics Teacher, whereby an inflated balloon is given a static
charge by rubbing with fur, left in the room for about 45 minutes, then
deflated and squeezed in front of a Geiger counter.  I presented a decay
curve showing an initial net activity of 11,660 counts/5min, while measuring
the radon level during the experiment at 0.3 pCi/l using a femto-TECH
510 continuous monitor!

The whole point of all of this as anyone on this list already knows,
is that any negative charge will collect particulate matter out of
the air (electroplating or simply plate-out).  Should we then simply
hang up balloons all around the house, rub with fur, and discard into
the trash and replace about every hour, just to reduce our radon
exposure?

Tom Walkiewicz, RSO			walkiewicz@edinboro.edu
Dept. Physics				814-732-2468
Edinboro University
Edinboro, PA 16444