Email to EPA

["Bjorn Cedervall" <bcradsafers@hotmail.com>]

Just sent off an email to the head of EPA regarding the radiation 
information for students and teachers (Does the "E" stand for embarrassment, 
entertainment, errors or what?). I interpret the lack of response so far as 
a sign of inefficient signal transduction within the EPA. The core text was:

"Regarding erroneous webtexts about radiation

I have noticed that the webtext about radiation for students and teachers
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/students/
contains several impossible concepts (like "radioactive alpha
particles") and also other serious errors. A quick browsing gives
you the following example of lack of knowledge and/or understanding
of basic chemistry (the periodic table), physics as well as the
history of these fields.

"Otto Hahn, 1879-1968 was born in Germany and studied chemistry.
Among other things, he discovered radioisotopes, radiothorium and
mesothorium. His research with other scientists, including Lise
Meitner and Fritz Strassman, led to the discovery of barium."

Barium was discovered in 1808 - this alone says that the writer has
no idea about the course of progress in chemistry - anyone in the
field knows that barium (like in the form of chloride or sulphate)
is a bulk chemical that you used to find in chemistry class. I will
not give details about the other few but serious errors in the
quoted paragraph above but for anyone interested I recommend
careful reading (and understanding) of the article about Lise
Meitner that occurred in Scientific American in January 1998.

What the paragraph above tells you is that the writer probably has
read (but not understood) a text somewhere, and then tried to make
a story out of it. That person obviously missed the point (the
discovery of nuclear fission!). I would not be surprised if a
clever 13 year old kid could have written the corresponding text in
a more accurate way.

I truly think that you would benefit from having a professional
from the field of radiation and/or nuclear physics and chemistry
to go over the web pages in question and carefully check every word
and number in every sentence. When one finds errors like the ones
mentioned above, you cannot trust any of the other related texts.

As I see it, this is not only about education, but also about
image. Furthermore, this is an international issue since the EPA
appears with its authority - the texts may easily be found and in
turn quoted by Internet users in other countries.

With the words above I represent myself,"
-------------
Bjorn Cedervall   bcradsafers@hotmail.com

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