Wednesday 23 March 2022

Radiation at the antiques store

 


The device is detecting beta radiation from the Uranium glaze on antique fiestaware. Most of the detected radiation is emitted by Uranium-238's decay products: Thorium-234 and Palladium-243(m). It may look alarming, but these plates are not that dangerous. In the unlikely event you managed to ingest all of the glaze from a single plate (~4.5 grams of U-238), the radiation dose would be under 10 mSv. That is only 1/5th the annual dose limit for a radiation worker.


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