Rouser's thought processes

[Rolfe]

It's the x-ray one the really baffles me. It's not even central to the original point, but still he defends his clearly erroneous assumption as if it's an item of true belief.

X-rays are easy to detect. However, objects which have been through an airport security scanner do not then proceed to emit x-rays, and thus cannot be sorted from identical objects which haven't been scanned by using a Geiger counter. But try explaining that to Rouser!

This one is so brain-dead I wonder whether he's really as stupid as he seems to be, or whether he's simply repeating obvious fallacies for the fun of watching our reactions.

What do you guys think?

Rolfe.

[epepke]

I can't vote. There's no option for "nugatory."

[Rolfe]

Quote:

Originally posted by epepke
I can't vote. There's no option for "nugatory."

Well, if I knew what you meant by that, and if I knew how to add another option, I'd fix it. But I don't, so I can't. Sorry.

Rolfe.

[SteveGrenard]

You still talking about x-ray contamination of skin and clothing? I thought you guys finished with that. It happens although not with the short exposures of most kinds of clinical x-ray procedures.

Take a look at:

http://web.princeton.edu/sites/ehs/r.../incidents.htm


Some years ago I was visiting Brookhaven National Laboratories out in Patchogue, NY and as I was leaving I was required to pass through a whole body counter to see if I picked up any radiation. It turns out I got some radiation on the bottom of my shoes from merely walking over a grid of a containment tank for spent fuel rods or some such thing. I don't recall. Anyway I had to give up my shoes to a technician who then washed off the radiation with borax and water and then I got my shoes back.

I thought we have all these hot shot physicists on this forum. They can explain this better than I can.

I suggest Rouser, recalling such incidents, was referring to this.

[bug_girl]

yeah, but radiation does not equal xrays, steve. it's just that xrays are a certain subset of radiation.

we had an ongoing problem with radioactive tracers used in ugrad labs--the kids don't take proper precautions, and then the whole damn counter is hot. it's not enough radioactivity to hurt anyone, but gets the feds much excited.
sigh.

[Zombified]

There's a difference between radiation and the stuff that emits radiation. If you get it on your shoes (or something like that) its a radioactive material, not radiation. X-rays are radiation, unstable isotopes are radioactive materials.

I posted an overly long diatribe here towards the bottom, but I think most everybody had already given up on that thread.

[SteveGrenard]

"The most likely scenario for a serious overexposure to radiation involves exposure to the primary beam of an x-ray diffractometer, to a high activity sealed source or as the result of an extended exposure to contamination on skin or clothing."

(from the above site). Yes, radioactive material. If your skin or clothing receives enough x-rays it becomes such a material.

I granted above that under ordinary clinical situations this is not the case.

[Doubt]

Rouser is a big believer in conspiracy theories. That which sounds right to him is assumed to be true. Actual proof is not required. He is quite capable of data mining in an attempt to support his beliefs even if the source he cites does not back his position.

When pinned into a corner, he will attempt to insult by ranting about “government education” in spite of his own ignorance.

I got into it with him in a thread about the Branch Dividians at Waco.

http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showt...highlight=waco

[BTox]

I was looking for the "Rouser is simply a nitwit" option. Wasn't there, so I settled for #1.

[Zep]

Rouser has thought processes?

With what, pray tell?

[Yahweh]

Quote:

Rouser knows that all these things are false, and he just enjoys watching us try more and more juvenile explanations while trying to convince him.

That one gets my vote.

[Eos of the Eons]

Quote:

Originally posted by Zep
Rouser has thought processes?

With what, pray tell?

I have no idea. He fiercely wants to believe pseudoscience.

I have some of my own paranoid theories on him. Mostly that he is a young pup brought up on pseudoscience. I think he plans on being a chiropractor or looks forward to going to a homeopath college.

Thus he needs customers. He's brushing up on his arguments to give his customers in case they come across people like us.

Heh

[Prester John]

Quote:

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
"The most likely scenario for a serious overexposure to radiation involves exposure to the primary beam of an x-ray diffractometer, to a high activity sealed source or as the result of an extended exposure to contamination on skin or clothing."

(from the above site). Yes, radioactive material. If your skin or clothing receives enough x-rays it becomes such a material.

I granted above that under ordinary clinical situations this is not the case.

Not quite Steve, it is talking about overexposure, it does not state that you will become radioactive thro' exposure to x-rays. Merely that exposure to x-rays can be dangerous and lead to "serious overexposure" (esp if you're mucking around with a diffractometer.)

Regardless the conversation was specifically about airport x-ray machines. Perhpas you could find out roughly how long you would have to leave a bottle of water in one to get any detectable changes!

[The Don]

Quote:

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
You still talking about x-ray contamination of skin and clothing? I thought you guys finished with that. It happens although not with the short exposures of most kinds of clinical x-ray procedures.

Take a look at:

http://web.princeton.edu/sites/ehs/r.../incidents.htm


Some years ago I was visiting Brookhaven National Laboratories out in Patchogue, NY and as I was leaving I was required to pass through a whole body counter to see if I picked up any radiation. It turns out I got some radiation on the bottom of my shoes from merely walking over a grid of a containment tank for spent fuel rods or some such thing. I don't recall. Anyway I had to give up my shoes to a technician who then washed off the radiation with borax and water and then I got my shoes back.

I thought we have all these hot shot physicists on this forum. They can explain this better than I can.

I suggest Rouser, recalling such incidents, was referring to this.

Not a hot shot physicist, but here goes......

There were, when I was at high school, three types of radiation:

- Alpha "rays" which are helium nucelii and are non-penetrative
- Beta "rays" which are relatively high energy electrons
- Gamma "rays" which is high energy electromagnetic radiation

All of these are caused by the decay of unstable ("radioactive") isotopes of elements into more stable isotopes.

As examples

Americium (241) decays to Neptunium (237) and in the process emits an alpha particle

Iodine (131) decays to Xenon (131) and in the process emits a beta particle

In either case there may also be an energy imbalance which causes the emmission of a gamma "ray"

In order for radiation to occur, there must be a material which is decaying (which is what was found on the bottom of the shoe).

If something is bombarded with gamma or x-rays (both high energy electromagnetic radiation) there is no lasting residual radiation within the material UNLESS the introduction of energy into the material has triggered, or increased the rate at which decay of that material takes place.

Bombarding water with x-rays does not leave x-rays in solution or suspension within the water that can come out an harm you at a later time. What x-rays (or indeed ultraviolet radiation) can do is to kill some of the the bacteria living in teh water.

[Rolfe]

Quote:

Originally posted by Prester John
Regardless, the conversation was specifically about airport x-ray machines. Perhaps you could find out roughly how long you would have to leave a bottle of water in one to get any detectable changes!

What PJ said.

Btox, I thought the Planet X option covered the "nitwit" angle - can't have a poll without a Planet X option, after all!

I still haven't voted myself, I can't make it out at all.

Rolfe.

[wayrad]

Rolfe, don't you have "wild virulent viruses" and "vaccine viruses" reversed in Option 1?

[Rolfe]

Quote:

Originally posted by wayrad
Rolfe, don't you have "wild virulent viruses" and "vaccine viruses" reversed in Option 1?

Whoops!

I had to read that three times before I realised. Serves me right for posting polls when I'm messing up the whole process (that was the third time of typing it!).

Anybody know of any way I can change this to spare my blushes?

Rolfe.

[wayrad]

Quote:

Originally posted by Rolfe
Anybody know of any way I can change this to spare my blushes?

I think you have to ask a moderator. I always find some howler in my posts right after hitting the "submit" button, myself.

[Rolfe]

Quote:

Originally posted by wayrad
I think you have to ask a moderator. I always find some howler in my posts right after hitting the "submit" button, myself.

I've asked Pyrrho to change "more" to "less". Since I don't see a way to send a PM to "duty moderator", I thought he was around and picked on him.

In fact it seems you can't edit the text of the questions at all, even during the first hour, so seeing it immediately wouldn't have helped. (I nearly always end up correcting typos in the first few minutes - pathological pedantry rules.)

Rolfe.

[epepke]

Quote:

Originally posted by Rolfe
Well, if I knew what you meant by that, and if I knew how to add another option, I'd fix it.

It's a word in a language we call Eng-lish. It means

1. Trifling; vain; futile; insignificant.

2. Of no force; inoperative; ineffectual.

All of which seem to describe those thought processes to me.

[BillHoyt]

Quote:

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
"The most likely scenario for a serious overexposure to radiation involves exposure to the primary beam of an x-ray diffractometer, to a high activity sealed source or as the result of an extended exposure to contamination on skin or clothing."

(from the above site). Yes, radioactive material. If your skin or clothing receives enough x-rays it becomes such a material.

I granted above that under ordinary clinical situations this is not the case.

No, Steve. If your clothing is exposed to spilled radioactive material it becomes radioactive. By virtue of having radioactive elements on it. Not by being exposed to x-rays.

[Rolfe]

Quote:

Originally posted by epepke
It's a word in a language we call Eng-lish. It means

1. Trifling; vain; futile; insignificant.

2. Of no force; inoperative; ineffectual.

All of which seem to describe those thought processes to me.

Yes, but I thought the planet X option might sort have covered it? If you mean his thought processes are insignificant and ineffectual, that is, rather than the poll itself, I mean. (Of course the poll itself is trifling and insignificant!)

Rolfe.

[Pyrrho]

Poll edited, changing "more" to "less" in the first option, by request.

[JamesM]

Might I suggest 'Flame War' as an appropriate venue for threads of the type 'So-and-so is stupid'?

[Rolfe]

Quote:

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
"The most likely scenario for a serious overexposure to radiation involves exposure to the primary beam of an x-ray diffractometer, to a high activity sealed source or as the result of an extended exposure to contamination on skin or clothing."

(from the above site). Yes, radioactive material. If your skin or clothing receives enough x-rays it becomes such a material.

I granted above that under ordinary clinical situations this is not the case.

Even acknowledging the caveat in that last sentence, I can't see how this is relevant to the question of whether or not you can detect which bottles of lactose pills (or whatever) have been through an airport security scanner using a Geiger counter. Which is what we're actually talking about.

Quote:

Well then, if non-radiated samples are to be mixed with radiated samples then the radiated samples would have more radiation than the non-radiated samples, presumeably detectable with a radiation detection device.

From this page here, where it all started. I just love the word "presumably"! Just make a wild guess, then when it turns out to be wrong, defend it to your last breath. That's our Rouser!

Edited to add: Yes, Randi did suggest upping the dose of x-rays to make sure that the homoeopathic remedies were properly inactivated, but that's a bit of a side-issue. The challenge is not to detect bottles of lactose pills which have been heavily irradiated from those which haven't, but to differentiate a potent homoeopathic preparation from an inactive twin. Making sure that the irradiation is so strong it chemically changes the glass or the lactose isn't what this is about. Rouser simply assumed that anything which has been x-rayed is radioactive, and we're having a little trouble persuading him that no, it's not.

Rolfe.

[Rolfe]

Quote:

Originally posted by Pyrrho
Poll edited, changing "more" to "less" in the first option, by request.

Thank you, Pyrrho, for sparing my blushes.

I hadn't thought of this as "Flame Wars" material, more as an exploration of Rouser's motives for so regularly declaring that black is white, but if you think it ought to be moved, then of course, do so.

Rolfe.

[JamesM]

Quote:

Originally posted by Rolfe
I hadn't thought of this as "Flame Wars" material,

You did, to be fair, title the poll 'How stupid is Rouser?'.

[Rolfe]

Quote:

Originally posted by JamesM
You did, to be fair, title the poll 'How stupid is Rouser?'.

True. Perhaps that was unkind. "What are Rouser's thought processes" would have been better.

But Pyrrho's changed one thing for me already, and I don't really want to bother him more.

By the way, I missed a bit. Rouser also argues passionately that epilepsy is only life-threatening if it is treated, and patients would be just fine if they were simply left alone. A patient who dies months after having the treatment stopped, when no medication was detectable in the body, therefore was killed by a delayed effect of the medication, not by the untreated epilepsy.

I'm sure there are more examples.

Rolfe.

[wayrad]

Quote:

Originally posted by BillHoyt


No, Steve. If your clothing is exposed to spilled radioactive material it becomes radioactive. By virtue of having radioactive elements on it. Not by being exposed to x-rays.

Yes, one can no more become radioactive from exposure to X-rays than one can become bioluminescent from exposure to sunlight.

If X-rays had that effect, wouldn't exposed and developed X-ray film be quite hazardous?

[BillHoyt]

Quote:

Originally posted by wayrad
If X-rays had that effect, wouldn't exposed and developed X-ray film be quite hazardous?

Stop making sense!

[Rolfe]

Quote:

Originally posted by wayrad
If X-rays had that effect, wouldn't exposed and developed X-ray film be quite hazardous?

If you pick the right substance to put through your security scanner, of course you would be able to tell what had been through and what hadn't. Pick a substance which is altered chemically by that particular radiation spectrum. (Though since the airport scanners claim to be safe for film, I'd need to enquire a bit more deeply as to what I should pick. Maybe Geni can help.)

Someone on the other thread came up with an analogy about knowing whether a light had been on in an empty room or not. Of course you could do this by choosing what material was in the room - again photographic film would seem like a good bet.

However, I can think of no way glass, water, alcohol or lactose, or even the paper of the labels, could be altered by an airport security x-ray scan. But even if they could, the detection device needed wouldn't be a Geiger counter - it would be something capable of detecting the chemically altered material, like photographic developing chemicals would detect if the film had been exposed, in the other example.

Steve seems to be implying that if you really whacked the aforementioned bottle of homoeopathic nothingness with an eye-popping dose, you might cause some chemical change. I don't know if he's right or not. But I'm pretty confident that whatever that change might be, it wouldn't turn said bottle of medical fraud into an x-ray emitter.

Which is what Rouser confidently thinks will happen, without even considering dose, or what the test material is actually made of, or whether what he's "presuming" even accords with basic common sense. (How likely is it that airport security is getting away with making our luggage radioactive?)

So Steve, could you maybe try to get your eye on the actual topic, rather than just piling in to try to find some spurious support for anyone who finds himself on the run from the more rational thinkers around here?

Rolfe.

PS. I still haven't voted. He's got avoiding the question down to such an art form I'm leaning to option 3. But I see that one is the least popular. Hmmm.

[jj]

Quote:

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
"The most likely scenario for a serious overexposure to radiation involves exposure to the primary beam of an x-ray diffractometer, to a high activity sealed source or as the result of an extended exposure to contamination on skin or clothing."

(from the above site). Yes, radioactive material. If your skin or clothing receives enough x-rays it becomes such a material.

I granted above that under ordinary clinical situations this is not the case.

So, if I take an apple, and put it under soft (low-energy) X-radiation for a month or two, it will become radioactive?

Really?

As far as x-ray diffractometer, um, what kind of gamma radiation were we talking about that will make something radioactive?

Now, if something put out slow neutrons, alphas, or something like that, yeah, that's a different story, but what energy of a photon does it take to bounce somthing out of an average light-element (meaning first 3 rows of the periodic table) stable nucleus?

AS? Bad Astronimer, you happen to recall? It's been a while.

[jj]

Quote:

Originally posted by Rolfe
If you pick the right substance to put through your security scanner, of course you would be able to tell what had been through and what hadn't. Pick a substance which is altered chemically by that particular radiation spectrum.

Try ASA1600 or more black and white film, say Ilford delta 3200 or TMAX3200.

[SteveGrenard]

Quote:

Steve seems to be implying that if you really whacked the afotementioned bottle of homoeopathic nothingness with an eye-popping dose, you might cause some chemical change. I don't know if he's right or not. But I'm pretty confident that whatever that change might be, it wouldn't turn said bottle of medical fraud into an x-ray emitter.

I am sorry but I do not recall implying or saying the above. If you think I was implying it, please note I was not. The point of my diversion was that substances can be irradiated and as a result become radioactive with very high doses of radiation including by X-Rays. My left shoe during my visit to Brookhaven is an example. And no, contrary to what someone else said, I did not pick up any radioactive particles of dust or whatever. The bottom of my left shoe happened to be in the path of a beam of radiation and as a result become irradiated and radioactive. I did not say or imply that ordinary X-Rays emitted by an ordinary clinical X-Ray machine could do this nor was I discussing homeopathic water.
I never heard of homeopathic water being irradiated anyway. Have you?

[BillHoyt]

Quote:

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
The point of my diversion was that substances can be irradiated and as a result become radioactive with very high doses of radiation including by X-Rays.

No, Steve.

Quote:

My left shoe during my visit to Brookhaven is an example.

Really, Steve, and just what radioactive isotope was formed in your shoe leather? Would you like to invoke alchemy here, or do you think it might be wise to refer to a physics textbook?

Quote:

And no, contrary to what someone else said, I did not pick up any radioactive particles of dust or whatever.

Of course not, Steve, your shoes were exposed to red kryptonite. Wonder you survived to return to the Daily Planet the following morning. Wonder Lois didn't figure you out as you walked in drained of your powers.

Quote:

The bottom of my left shoe happened to be in the path of a beam of radiation and as a result become irradiated and radioactive.

Sure, Steve, them cowboy fizzlists must have been making you dance, boy. Dance or I'll shoot you with my particle beam. Step lahvley now, boy. We'll make y'all squeal lahk a pig! Hot d***n!

Will you stop at nothing to defend idiotic statements, Steve?

Quote:

I did not say or imply that ordinary X-Rays emitted by an ordinary clinical X-Ray machine ...

You said this:

Quote:

If your skin or clothing receives enough x-rays it becomes such a material.

Laughingstock. Absolute laughingstock. Go peddle nuts somewhere else.

[Darat]

Quote:

Originally posted by jj


So, if I take an apple, and put it under soft (low-energy) X-radiation for a month or two, it will become radioactive?

...snip...

JJ/Rofle/wayrad et all

Please don't be angry but I have found evidence that you are totally wrong and I suspect this is where Rouser found his evidence as well.

Irradiation & Gamma rays

[BillHoyt]

Since past experience informs us, he will NOT stop with this delusion, it might be helpful if someone says a few things about this previous statement of his and his current description. Previously, on As the Gollum Turns we heard:

Quote:

Anyway I had to give up my shoes to a technician who then washed off the radiation with borax and water and then I got my shoes back.

So, lets see. This isn't material he picked up, is it? Why do I say that? Because in the current episode of As the Gollum Turns, the Gollum is heard to bleat:

Quote:

The bottom of my left shoe happened to be in the path of a beam of radiation and as a result become irradiated and radioactive.

Now the magic of the cowboy's beam is that it failed to penetrate the Gollum's shoe leather! All of the radioactive isotopes formed were on the outside of the leather only and the alchemist technician was able magically to wash them away!

Woo woo.

[wayrad]

Quote:

Originally posted by SteveGrenard


I am sorry but I do not recall implying or saying the above. If you think I was implying it, please note I was not. The point of my diversion was that substances can be irradiated and as a result become radioactive with very high doses of radiation including by X-Rays. My left shoe during my visit to Brookhaven is an example. And no, contrary to what someone else said, I did not pick up any radioactive particles of dust or whatever. The bottom of my left shoe happened to be in the path of a beam of radiation and as a result become irradiated and radioactive. I did not say or imply that ordinary X-Rays emitted by an ordinary clinical X-Ray machine could do this nor was I discussing homeopathic water.
I never heard of homeopathic water being irradiated anyway. Have you?

Obviously the grill (or something else you stepped on) was contaminated with a radioactive material, which you picked up. What were they doing letting you walk around a hot area without shoe covers, anyway? I worked several years at a nuclear fuel production facility and something like that would have grossly violated standard procedures.

edited to add: If you had indeed been "in the path of a beam of radiation" it would show up on your film badge. If you had not been issued a film badge, either somebody's due a visit from the Feds, or you weren't near anything that was supposed to emit radiation at all. (edited again: I mean, "weren't supposed to be near anything that emitted radiation..." Grammar got tangled there.)

[jj]

Quote:

Originally posted by Darat


JJ/Rofle/wayrad et all

Please don't be angry but I have found evidence that you are totally wrong and I suspect this is where Rouser found his evidence as well.

Irradiation & Gamma rays

http://imdb.com/title/tt0068528/

[BillHoyt]

Quote:

Originally posted by Darat


JJ/Rofle/wayrad et all

Please don't be angry but I have found evidence that you are totally wrong and I suspect this is where Rouser found his evidence as well.

Irradiation & Gamma rays

I stand corrected, Darat. I didn't think anyone would invoke such a high authority as Professor S. Lee. My apologies, Steve, Rouser.