Salamander

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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: December 19th, 2021

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  • Ooh, cool! 😁 That detector seems to be working only in “Geiger mode”, which means that it can count the number of X-rays/Gamma particles but it does not estimate their energy. So, the dedicated devices are still better in that they allow you to identify the source of the radiation by measuring the counts and the energy distribution simultaneously.

    It probably would not be too difficult to build the open gamma detector into something like a pinephone. I don’t think that has been done yet.



  • Yes. The camera pixels generate a current in response to light. You can add some filters to block certain wavelengths of light (like UV) from getting to the camera sensor, and tune the pixels so that they respond more to to specific colors. But X-rays and gamma rays can just pass through the filter. Often they will pass through sensor as well, but, in the cases that they do get absorbed by the sensor, they can also produce a current that to the camera’s readout electronics looks like other light would.

    The gamma detectors I mentioned are very very sensitive. They respond to single X-ray/Gamma ray particles. These detectors can count how many individual particles collide with a small crystal cube every second. These crystals are special in that they produce a very tiny flash of light when an X-ray or gamma particle collides with them. As an added bonus, these sensors can directly measure the energy of the particles by measuring the strength of the flash, and from this information they can construct not only the total counts but also a spectrum. With this extreme sensitivity these detectors can measure small quantities of radiation that come from space, from rocks, and from other materials.

    I looked for a video of a phone going through an X-ray machine, and found these:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8iSoPhtY3s

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1YaroH6lHA

    The white specks that you can see near second 25 (first video) and second 34 (second video) could be a result of the X-rays. I am not sure, but it seems reasonable to me. On contrast, when I put my radiacode through the X-ray machine in the airport the radiacode reacts very strongly and becomes saturated.











  • Search engines like google aggregate data from multiple sites. I may want to download a datasheet for an electronic component, find an answer to a technical question, find a language learning course site, or look for museums in my area.

    Usually I make specific searches with very specific conditions, so I tend to get few and relevant results. I think search engines have their place.



  • Fair enough. I just looked it up and if the scale in this image is correct, I agree that the size of the hole looks small in comparison. I also looked at the security video of the crash itself and it is frustrating how little we can see from it.

    Since this was such an important event and there seems to be a lack of specific pieces of essential evidence - either because of bad luck or because of a cover-up - I understand the skepticism. And I am not a fan of blindly believing any official narrative. But, without any context, if I see that photo and someone tells me that a plane crashed into that building, I would find it probable simply because the shape is so similar to the photo of the Bijlmer accident that I'm familiar with. A plane crash seems to me like a very chaotic process, so I don't have a good expectation of what the damage should look like.

    Maybe I'll look for a pentagon crash documentary some time.