Help for understanding Bremsstrahlung x-rays.?
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Bremsstrahlung x-rays are continuous-spectrum rays emitted by high energy electrons decelerating rapidly when colliding with the nucleus of an atom in the target. They are distinguished from the narrow-spectrum "characteristic" x-rays that are emitted from when electrons of heavy elements make transitions between lower energy levels, as when caused by a collision with a high energy electron. (ref.1). More details are in ref. 2.
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The detection of X-rays is based on various methods. The most commonly known method are a photographic plate, or cassette, and rare earth screens.\n\nThe X-ray photographic plate is frequently used in hospitals to produce images of the internal organs and bones of a patient. The part of the patient to be X-rayed is placed between the X-ray source and the photographic plate to produce what is a shadow of all the internal structure of that particular part of the body being X-rayed. The X-rays are blocked by dense tissues such as bone and pass through soft tissues. Where the X-rays strike the photographic plate it turns black when it is developed. So where the X-rays go through "soft" parts of the body like organs and skin the plate turns black. Contrast compounds containing barium or iodine can be injected in the artery of a particular organ. The contrast compounds strongly block the X-rays and hence the circulation of the organ can be more readily seen.\n\nAnother method of detecting X-rays is a fluorescent plate. In modern hospitals a special plastic sheet is used in place of the photographic plate. The plastic sheet is read by a scanning laser beam. The resultant image is then stored in a computer. The plastic sheet can be used over and over again.
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background radiation is naturally occuring radioactive elements that exist in nature.\n\nWhy is it present... good grief that's a good question. God, this is where you would step in with an explanation lol
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Read the book "Nuclear and Radiochemistry" by Friedlander, Kennedy and Miller for the basic principles and then contact the cyclotron Institute at Texas A&M University for Ideas on their cyclotron.  You could also contact Washington University in St. Louis, MO and get their plans.
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This may help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohr_atom
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X-rays are a form of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength in the range of 10 to 0.01 nanometres, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 to 30 000 PHz (1015 hertz). X-rays are primarily used for diagnostic radiography and crystallography. X-rays are a form of ionizing radiation and as such can be dangerous. In many languages it is called Röntgen radiation after the investigator of the radiation, Wilhelm Röntgen.\nUSES:\nMedical uses\nX-rays can reveal the details of bones and teeth\nEnlarge\nX-rays can reveal the details of bones and teeth\nX-Ray Image of a male skull\nEnlarge\nX-Ray Image of a male skull\n\nSince Röntgen's discovery that X-rays can identify bony structures, X-rays have been developed for their use in medical imaging. Radiology is a specialized field of medicine. Radiographers employ radiography and other techniques for diagnostic imaging. Indeed, this is probably the most common use of X-ray technology.\n\nX-rays are especially useful in the detection of pathology of the skeletal system, but are also useful for detecting some disease processes in soft tissue. Some notable examples are the very common chest X-ray, which can be used to identify lung diseases such as pneumonia, lung cancer or pulmonary edema, and the abdominal X-ray, which can detect ileus (blockage of the intestine), free air (from visceral perforations) and free fluid (in ascites). In some cases, the use of X-rays is debatable, such as gallstones (which are rarely radiopaque) or kidney stones (which are often visible, but not always). Also, traditional plain X-rays pose very little use in the imaging of soft tissues such as the brain or muscle. Imaging alternatives for soft tissues are computed axial tomography (CAT or CT scanning), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or ultrasound. Since 2005, X-rays are listed as a carcinogen by the U.S. government.\n\nRadiotherapy, a curative medical intervention, now used almost exclusively for cancer, employs higher energies of radiation.\n\nThe efficiency of X-ray tubes is less than 2%. Most of the energy is used to heat up the anode.\n\nThe use of X-rays for medical purposes (to develop into the field of radiation therapy) was pioneered by Major John Hall-Edwards in Birmingham, England. In 1908, he had to have his left arm amputated owing to the spread of X-ray dermatitis[2]. In the 1950s X-rays were used to produce an X-ray microscope.
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radioactivity is the number of radioactive particle emitted in a unit of time.\nSo, the application are\nMedication- radioactive source that emits X-ray is used to scan bones. It also used to kill cancer cells(this technique is called the radiotheraphy)\nDating- Since there is C14 which is radioactive in almost every carbon based organism (include human and dinosour,n in fact in all organism), historian were able to determine the age of an artifact or bones.\nPaper production- using information that alpha particle cannot penetrate a thin sheet of paper, we are able to control the thickness of paper produced.\nsterilization- because radiation can kill cells, it is use to kill microbes to sterill things.
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1. Background radiation is an average value.\nYou may be taking a count in place where the background is lower (e.g., in the partially shielded room).\n\n2. Background radiation AND counters are directional.\nFor example, let's say you live in the granite building and take a count in the direction of window. Your background comes mostly from granite, so counts become lower.\n\n3. Is your sample on a shielding material? Thick piece of metal or plastic, maybe?\nIf your sample is non-active, you are actually shielding background off and then measure what's left with a directional counter.
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X-rays are absorbed by the topmost levels of the earth's atmosphere.\nThe same applies to the gamma radiation emitted by the sun.\n\nWhen the incoming radiation strikes the top of the atmosphere, it interacts with the air molecules and is absorbed (by being broken into a shower of exotic particles, none of which exist for long enough to reach the surface of the planet)\n\nThere are two windows for which radiation reaches the ground, One starting at UV through to visible light and to Infrared, and the Radiowave window which satellites communicate through.
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I could not understand what did you mean by 'as such'! But, gamma rays are also photons and if certain conditions (conservation theorems, energy requirements) are satisfied, they could undergo the process of pair-production whereby they could be converted into electron-positron pairs (an experimentally observed fact).\n \nPair-production occurs when a 1.022 MeV gamma-photon interacts with a heavy atomic nucleus, and produces an electron and a positron without violating conservation of momentum. Pair production cannot occur in empty space out of a single photon because the momentum of the initial photon must be absorbed by something, and the heavy nucleus is thus required to conserve both momentum and energy. The energy of the photon 1.022 MeV, as described above, is the total energy of twice the electron mass (according to E = mc^2). Indeed energy is being converted into mass in this process!
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put the counter closer cos alpha raysonly travel a short distance...maybe that will work?... \n\nor get something that will alter with radiation... i think there a material that changes colour when hit with radiation....\n\nOOOOOOOOOrr... get something that emits a longer range radiation ray when the alpha partiles hit it...that way u can get a good approx of the count
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Radioactivity was first discovered in 1896 by the French scientist Henri Becquerel while working on phosphorescent materials. These materials glow in the dark after exposure to light, and he thought that the glow produced in cathode ray tubes by X-rays might somehow be connected with phosphorescence. So he tried wrapping a photographic plate in black paper and placing various phosphorescent minerals on it. All results were negative until he tried using uranium salts. The result with these compounds was a deep blackening of the plate.\n\nHowever, it soon became clear that the blackening of the plate had nothing to do with phosphorescence because the plate blackened when the mineral was kept in the dark. Also non-phosphorescent salts of uranium and even metallic uranium blackened the plate. Clearly there was some new form of radiation that could pass through paper that was causing the plate to blacken.\n\nAt first it seemed that the new radiation was similar to the then recently discovered X-rays. However further research by Becquerel, Marie Curie, Pierre Curie, Ernest Rutherford and others discovered that radioactivity was significantly more complicated. Different types of decay can occur.\n\nFor instance, it was found that an electric or magnetic field could split such emissions into three beams. For lack of better terms, the rays were given the alphabetic names alpha, beta, and gamma, names they still hold today. It was immediately obvious from the direction of electromagnetic forces that alpha rays carried a positive charge, beta rays carried a negative charge, and gamma rays were neutral. From the magnitude of deflection, it was also clear that alpha particles were much more massive than beta particles. Passing alpha rays through a thin glass membrane and trapping them in a discharge tube allowed researchers to study the emission spectrum of the resulting gas, and ultimately prove that alpha particles are in fact helium nuclei. Other experiments showed the similarity between beta radiation and cathode rays; they are both streams of electrons, and between gamma radiation and X-rays.\n\nThese researchers also discovered that many other chemical elements have radioactive isotopes. Radioactivity also guided Marie Curie to isolate radium from barium; the two elements' chemical similarity would otherwise have made them difficult to distinguish.\n\nThe dangers of radioactivity and of radiation were not immediately recognized. Acute effects of radiation were first observed in the use of X-rays when an Serbo-Croatian-American electric engineer Nikola Tesla intentionally subjected his fingers to X-rays in 1896. He published his observations concerning the burns that developed, though he attributed them to ozone rather than to the X-rays. Fortunately his injuries healed later.\n\nThe genetic effects of radiation, including the effects on cancer risk, were recognized much later. It was only in 1927 that Hermann Joseph Muller published his research that showed the genetic effects. In 1947 he was awarded the Nobel prize for his findings.\n\nBefore the biological effects of radiation were known, many physicians and corporations had begun marketing radioactive substances as patent medicine and Radioactive quackery; particularly alarming examples were radium enema treatments, and radium-containing waters to be drunk as tonics. Marie Curie spoke out against this sort of treatment, warning that the effects of radiation on the human body were not well understood (Curie later died from aplastic anemia assumed due to her own work with radium, but later examination of her bones showed that she had been a careful laboratory worker and had a low burden of radium; a better candidate for her disease was her long exposure to unshielded X-ray tubes while a volunteer medical worker in WW I). By the 1930's, after a number of cases of bone-necrosis and death in enthusiasts, radium-containing medical products had all but vanished from the market.\n
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I'm very interested in becoming an radiology technologist, and from what I've heard, nowadays, the equipment is so good and improved that techs recieve little or no radiation.  There are actually little pins that techs can wear to track how much radiation they are exposed to, and like I said, with the new equipment, the pins have been very helpful in confirming the lack of exposure.
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Cherenkov radiation is Electromagnetic (non-ionising) radiation emitted when a charged particle (e.g. an Electron ) passes through a medium (e.g. water) at a speed greater than that of light in the medium. This can be seen as the characteristic "blue glow" where sources of large activity (e.g. irradiator sources or spent nuclear fuel) are stored under water.\n\nI too have recollections that Cherenkov radiation is primarily asscoiated with Caesium, but I haven't managed to find any confirmation of this.
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Here's a nice explanation:\nhttp://www.4to40.com/QA/index.asp?counter=382&category=science
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Ok I think that what you don't understand and what really has not been pointed out yet is that radiation is produced by the decay ( or breakdown) of atoms in the nuclear material.\n\nSay you have a few pounds of nuclear waste. You have Billions and billions and billions of atoms. Remember Avogadro's number? That is the number in just a mole of material. Now imaging that number multiplied by the number of moles in a few pounds! That's a lot of atoms.\n\nNow a fire burns out because it runs out of material to burn. However with all those billions of atoms it could take tens of thousands of years for all the material to be used up.\n\nie if the half life is 10,000 years, that means we have only used up half the material in 10,000 years. So if we had 10 pounds of nuclear waster, in 10,000 years we would still be left with 5 pounds!\n\nNow think of Einsteins famous equation E=mc2.\nm is the mass, c is the speed of light squared, and E is the\nenergy you get out of it. As you can see, even in a very small amount of mass there is tremendous energy.\n\nSo sum it up, even though very small amounts are decaying and giving off large amounts of energy. It is going to take thousand and thousands of years before it is used up.that is why it lasts so long.
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For the first question, , I think C is the least correct.  Alpha and beta emissions are particles, not rays.  B is also suspect, because not all radioactive emiissions are both particulate and energy.\n\nFor your true/false question, the answer is FALSE.  An alpha emission reduces the atomic number by 2, and reduces the atomic weight by 4.