Experiments

The subject of today's post is the gamma spectrum of uranium glass, which I happened to come across. Probably everyone involved in gamma spectrometry has had the chance to measure uranium containing glassware or "Fiestaware" - a fascinating, or maybe insane, piece of history, when kitchen glass or porcelain was colored with uranium

After a rather long and somewhat turbulent period in my life, I finally found a moment to write this post. Today's topic will be focused on minerals. It's been a while since I last went panning for gold in the area near Golčův Jeníkov in the highlands. We found some gold back then, but what was equally interesting was the amount of heavy

This summer we spent nice holiday week in Gosau, small alpine town laying at mountainside of Gosaukamm in a part of Austria known as Salzkammergut. It is very nice place with lot of natural attractions in surrounding area (mountains, lakes, caves, fossils, etc.). When we prepared for the holiday, I looked to the maps of Cs-137 contamination in

Hi there, after some time I am back again. As can be clearly seen from the previous article, we live in a country heavily affected by nuclear accident in Chernobyl [1,2] (Image 1). Target chosen for today experiment is ordinary soil taken at the place where I live. I was curious whether it will be possible to measure activity of Cs-137 in common

For today article I have chosen something which could be of interest for mushroom pickers in our dear Europe. People over forty probably remember nuclear disaster in Soviet Union Chernobyl nuclear power plant on 26 April 1986. Lot of articles has been written on this topic. Somebody could say that it is more than 30 years ago, so what? Thing that

Lutetium is silvery grey metal element belonging to the group of rare earth metals (lanthanides) as its last member which closes it. Unlike some other lanthanides, lutetium is relatively stable at dry air, but is readily oxidized in humid environment and at higher temperatures. Lutetium has highest hardness (Brinnel - 893 MPa), density (9.84

Beryllium is a steel grey hard and brittle metal with relatively low density, high thermal capacity and high sound conductivity. Due to its interesting physical-chemical characteristics, it has many uses in special materials used for example in aerospace applications or electronics. Main drawback of beryllium and its compounds is really high

In this post I would like to present gamma spectrum of cobalt-60 radioisotope. This isotope has many industrial and medical uses, for instance in gamma defectoscopy, thickness measurement, tools and food sterilization or in radiotherapy. One gram of cobalt-60 has huge activity - about 44 terabecquerels (TBq). By the way, if one would hang around

Trinitite is a mineral of artificial origin resulting from the first atomic bomb blast at Alamogordo site in New Mexico (USA) on July 16, 1945. At high temeprature which occured in the epicenter of detonation, sand and rocks melted and mixed with products of nuclear fission. After solidification, glassy material known as Trinitite emerged. Even