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#41 |
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Anti-homeopathy illuminati member
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: NT 150 511
Posts: 34,312
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He latched on to the x-ray scanner part of it, and replied,
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However, the question as to whether everyday materials such as glass, water, sugar, leather and so on would become x-ray emitters under any conceivable doses of x-rays (or even become radioactive in any way at all) is still at issue, thanks to Rouser. Just because Mr. Randi thought it was worth considering, certainly isn't proof that it could or would happen. Anyone here which a good physics degree clear this up once and for all? Rolfe. |
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"The way we vote will depend, ultimately, on whether we are persuaded to hope or to fear." - Aonghas MacNeacail, June 2012. |
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#42 |
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Anti-homeopathy illuminati member
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: NT 150 511
Posts: 34,312
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![]() You got me there! I really thought you'd found something! Aaaaggghh! Edited to add: I see jj got there way first! Rolfe. |
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"The way we vote will depend, ultimately, on whether we are persuaded to hope or to fear." - Aonghas MacNeacail, June 2012. |
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#43 |
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Anti-homeopathy illuminati member
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: NT 150 511
Posts: 34,312
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(Remembering more from the medical physics courses now, got a distinction, but it was 30 years ago so maybe they found more colours of kryptonite I didn't know about....) This is completely nuts! Anything that might do that to leather would make Hiroshima look like a vicarage tea-party. Edited to add: Of course, the passage highlighted by BillHoyt.....
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Sheesh, I must remember that Steve understands substantially less science than he'd like us to believe. And if ever we need that demonstrated, this lot has done a splendid job. Rolfe |
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"The way we vote will depend, ultimately, on whether we are persuaded to hope or to fear." - Aonghas MacNeacail, June 2012. |
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#44 |
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Muse
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 739
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"No one knows the reason for all this, but it is probably quantum" - Terry Pratchett |
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#45 |
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Anti-homeopathy illuminati member
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: NT 150 511
Posts: 34,312
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OK, thank you Steve. By demonstrating such utter sincerity in holding a completely daft belief pretty much identical to Rouser's, you have convinced me that it is possible to be this stupid, really.
Steve actually thought about it at a level Rouser didn't even attempt, and had the obvious solution (the contamination washed off) right there to hand, and had it all explained to him quite sensibly, and it's obvious he wasn't just trolling.... BUT HE STILL DIDN'T GET IT. So what hope had Rouser, really? Rolfe. |
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"The way we vote will depend, ultimately, on whether we are persuaded to hope or to fear." - Aonghas MacNeacail, June 2012. |
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#46 |
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Philosopher
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Wherever the airline sends my luggage
Posts: 5,528
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Hmm so Rolfe, you are saying the radiation physics technician did not wash off the radiation on my shoe? And I was
hallucinating. Thanks for that. I suyggest you begin by starting to read all he health physicsts manuals and procedures you can find and get back to us. Insofar as to what Rouser was probably referring to, and to which you were implying that I was implying, you probably were referring to the following description: Tony Webb, Tim Lang and the London Food Commission, Food Irradiation - The myth and the reality rev ed. Thorsons, Wellingborough, UK 1990
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#47 |
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grumpy old skeptic
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Deep in the rain
Posts: 18,476
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Steve, please. Nobody is doubting that somebody WIPED THE RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL OFF YOUR SHOE. However, your shoe did NOT become radioactive because it was exposed to ?-rays, you STEPPED IN SOMETHING THAT HAD A RADIOISOTOPE IN IT. That was material that emitted radioactivity that was STUCK to your shoe. That was wiped off. So it was gone. Even if it was an alpha emitter, it's highly unlikely that it was there long enough to get anything in your shoe going. Light elements tend to be very unstable except in the stable isotopic form, as well, so a light element "off by 4, meaning 2p, 2n" would typically decay in nothing flat. Were it your SHOE that became radioactive, wiping it WOULD HAVE DONE NO GOOD. The material of your SHOE, then, would emit radiation, and wiping it would do jack. If it was your shoe that was radioactive, not something stuck to it, they would have taken it, and YOU would have taken a trip to the clinic to make sure of YOUR condition. It would take exposure to particles, not photons, typically, to make your shoe radioactive, and that would have meant YOU were exposed rather nastily, too, which I'm quite glad you weren't. |
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The Power to Quit |
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#48 |
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Philosopher
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Wherever the airline sends my luggage
Posts: 5,528
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1. Our group was issued protective shoe covers. These were taken from us when we left the hot area.
2. The bottom of my shoe was radioactive This was inside the booty. It was scrubbed with Borax soapy water. My socks were also contaminated so these were kept (I had to go home w/o socks). I was also required to scrub my feet with the same solution they used on the shoe. Fortunately I got to keep my left shoe and foot. When I walked through the whole body thingie and it registered a problem I was gone over from head to foot with a hand held device which discovered the radiation on my protective covers, my shoe, my socks and my foot. Yes I am sure it was something nasty but the health physicist was satisifed that they had sucessfully washed it off my shoe and my foot; there was no convenient way of doing so for my socks. If you visit the above cited safety site for working with radiation at Princeton, or any other for that matter, it appears that this is standard operating procedure in such a case. -------------------------------------------------- Source: Prepared Statement of Dr. Henry C. Kelly, President, Federation of American Scientists. To Senate Foreign Relations Committee. March 6, 2002.
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#49 |
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grumpy old skeptic
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Deep in the rain
Posts: 18,476
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It wasn't some kind of x-ray or something, it was a material substance. Since the sock absorbs, it went to a dump. The shoe didn't absorb much, apparently, so it was ok. Your foot you get to keep which is good.Your quote on gamma radiation doesn't show that it makes something else radioactive, by the way, it simply shows that gamma radiation (which is photons, not matter particles) has chemical effects, (as opposed to nuclear effects) which is something I think we agree on. And exposure to much is, indeed, bad. Any photon that is "ionizing" to any serious extent can cause tissue damage. If it hits the right thing, which is purely a question of chance, it can cause very serious problems. Since we grew up in a mildly radioactive environment, our systems compensate pretty well, but not perfectly. |
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The Power to Quit |
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#50 |
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Muse
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 739
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By the way, if you read your quote, it says nothing about irradiated substances becoming radioactive. It says they are ionized - quite a different matter and an essential part of ordinary chemistry. It isn't particularly good for living tissue to get ionized, which is why they got the stuff off you ASAP, but it certainly doesn't make it radioactive. |
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"No one knows the reason for all this, but it is probably quantum" - Terry Pratchett |
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#51 |
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Philosopher
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Wherever the airline sends my luggage
Posts: 5,528
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Wayrad:
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Then why did they determine they suceeded using a Geiger Counter? |
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#52 |
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Muse
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 739
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edited to add: Positive reading= something radioactive present. Negative reading= radioactive substance removed. Now your shoe was still there. Isn't this a clue that the radioactive substance wasn't your shoe? |
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"No one knows the reason for all this, but it is probably quantum" - Terry Pratchett |
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#53 |
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Philosopher
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Wherever the airline sends my luggage
Posts: 5,528
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So some radioactive substance fell into my shoe and contaminated the shoe cover, the leather bottom of the shoe, the sock and the bottom of my foot. I am perplexed why it didnt contaminate the inside of the shoe but apparently it didn't.
They clearly obtained positive readings from the bottom of the shoe, the sock and the bottom of my foot. Exactly how would such a radioactive substance be produced? (Yes, I do not know what it was or what they thought it was as they were not telling me...they simply referred to it as "radiation"). |
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#54 |
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Back From The Dead
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Inside my brain
Posts: 1,373
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1. Refining ore that has a naturally occuring radioactive substances in it. 2. Bombarding a stable material with neutrons or some high-energy particle that interacts with the nucleus (most EM radiation interacts with electrons, not with the nucleus). Typically this is in a reactor of some sort, if you're using neutrons. If you are bombarding nuclei with high energy protons or electrons you can use a particle accelerator as well.
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Glad to hear you got cleaned off and suffered no ill effects. |
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#55 |
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Muse
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 739
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People do tend to throw the words "radiation" and "radioactive material" around interchangeably, but they really weren't correct to do so. |
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"No one knows the reason for all this, but it is probably quantum" - Terry Pratchett |
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#56 |
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Muse
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 739
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Didn't you say you walked on a grid over a containment tank? One possibility is that you got hit by a drop or two from a splash. Something falling into the tank, for example a pebble carried in on the bottom of a shoe, might have done it. It's only a guess, though.
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"No one knows the reason for all this, but it is probably quantum" - Terry Pratchett |
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#57 |
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Philosopher
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Wherever the airline sends my luggage
Posts: 5,528
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Yes, I had walked on a steel grid bridging a containment tank. I heard them talking that they thought this is where I got contaminated. I was allowed to take pictures and wanted a shot of the tank from directly on top of it. Our escort okayed it.
The film was fogged. |
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#58 |
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grumpy old skeptic
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Deep in the rain
Posts: 18,476
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The Power to Quit |
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#59 |
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Enlightening rod
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Right behind you...
Posts: 5,842
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Are you still trying to understand this as your shoes becoming radioactive after exposure to radiation or...? |
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#60 |
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Muse
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 739
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"No one knows the reason for all this, but it is probably quantum" - Terry Pratchett |
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#61 |
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Anti-homeopathy illuminati member
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: NT 150 511
Posts: 34,312
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Quote:
Steve, I'm saying that the technician washed off the radioactive material you'd picked up on your shoe (sock, whatever). Just like washing off dog poop you'd stepped on in the street. The Geiger counter detects radiation, which was being emitted by the "dog poop". Once there was no radiation detectable, the technician knew that he'd succeeded in getting it all off. If the actual material of your shoe had been transformed into a radiation emitter (which is impossible under these circumstances anyway), it would not have been possible to wash it off. The technician may have said that your shoe had become radioactive, but this is just sloppy use of language. Think dog poop again. You may say that your shoe has become smelly, but in fact your shoe has become smeared with a smelly substance. It hasn't turned into dog poop. Your shoe registered on a Geiger counter because some radioactive isotope had splashed on it, then registered negative after this contaminating material had been washed off. This has absolutely nothing to do with the subject under discussion. Posting quotes which refer to completely different situations where bombardment of a material does cause a nuclear reaction has nothing to do with it either. Maybe you should go have a look at some physics text-books? Steve, this isn't so hard. It's an easy misapprehension to make. But it's also quite easy to understand the real situation - and the fact that there is unanimity among people who actually know about this type of physics work should perhaps indicate to you that they may be right. What's the problem with just saying, oh, I misunderstood? Rolfe. |
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"The way we vote will depend, ultimately, on whether we are persuaded to hope or to fear." - Aonghas MacNeacail, June 2012. |
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#62 |
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Muse
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 739
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I think he has "gotten it" by now, actually. I really do wonder about the safety procedures at the place where he was, though. If he got his film fogged, he must have picked up a dose (which, as he should have noticed, didn't make his film, his camera, his hands, or even his other foot radioactive!). In an area that hot, or if there was any possibility of splashing (I'm thinking along the lines of something like a disassembly basin for underwater storage of spent fuel, waiting for shipment offsite), nobody should have been out there without a lot more protection and training than Steve describes. And I can't imagine letting a visitor get exposed.
At the facility where I worked, we had safety procedures drilled into us, with several hours a month of mandatory training. And I was in a nonsecure area, with little or no exposure. Anybody who caused a safety violation was lucky if they only underwent enough remedial training to wish they'd never been born. And I can only shudder as I imagine how much security has probably tightened up since 9/11. |
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"No one knows the reason for all this, but it is probably quantum" - Terry Pratchett |
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#63 |
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Anti-homeopathy illuminati member
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: NT 150 511
Posts: 34,312
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Quote:
You're right, their safety procedures sound pretty flaky. However, maybe there's a bit more to it than Steve's telling us. And maybe the ensuing fuss was bigger than he's saying too. I wonder where Rouser went? Oh well. I see the "Rouser is relatively bright and is only playing with us" option didn't get much support, which was what I was mainly interested in. Rolfe. |
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"The way we vote will depend, ultimately, on whether we are persuaded to hope or to fear." - Aonghas MacNeacail, June 2012. |
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#64 |
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Enlightening rod
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Right behind you...
Posts: 5,842
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#65 |
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Muse
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 739
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"No one knows the reason for all this, but it is probably quantum" - Terry Pratchett |
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#66 |
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Anti-homeopathy illuminati member
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: NT 150 511
Posts: 34,312
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Quote:
Reminds me of the homoeopathy argument from last autumn,when Steve argued till he was blue in the face in favour of the proposition that homoeopathy was a valid discipline, apparently by redefining "homoeopathy" to mean any dilution which still has an appreciable amount of substance left in it. When he finally got the point about increasing dilutions equating to increasing potency, and that "real" homoeopathy is almost exclusively about content-free preparations (unless you're Hans Weitbrecht trying to be funny), he didn't admit he now understood or anything that simple, he just sloped off in silence, then remarked some time later on another thread that he was pretty sure homoeopathy was bunk.This leopard isn't going to change its spots in a hurry. Now, where's Rouser? Rolfe. |
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"The way we vote will depend, ultimately, on whether we are persuaded to hope or to fear." - Aonghas MacNeacail, June 2012. |
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#67 |
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Enlightening rod
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Right behind you...
Posts: 5,842
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#68 |
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Anti-homeopathy illuminati member
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: UK
Posts: 26,555
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It is very simple. Rouser is a P-zombie
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#69 |
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Muse
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 739
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__________________
"No one knows the reason for all this, but it is probably quantum" - Terry Pratchett |
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#70 |
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Anti-homeopathy illuminati member
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: NT 150 511
Posts: 34,312
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I just felt like bumping this, considering.
Rolfe. |
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"The way we vote will depend, ultimately, on whether we are persuaded to hope or to fear." - Aonghas MacNeacail, June 2012. |
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#71 |
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Philosopher
Join Date: Oct 2003
Posts: 7,950
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Frankly, I think it's simpler than that. I've seen it several times.
Modern medicine is very imperfect. It does a lot of things wrong, and some people are hurt by it. If one has an average brain, one can look at the overall effect of modern medicine and conclude that, on whole, it's better than the alternative. If one has a better-than-average brain, one can look a modern medicine and think about where it's weak and where it's strong and even try to figure out how to make it better. People with better-than-average brains can simultaneously deal with the fact that the ten or so cases of polio in the US are all caused by the oral vaccine but still compare this with the pre-vaccine days when in every neighborhood, a kid or two would be crippled with polio. However, if one has a poorer-than-average brain, then there is a problem with storage and representation of ideas. It takes a lot of bits to understand medicine. It takes few to have a stereotypical opinion. So those with few will find stereotypes more appealing. Some of the people with few bits to spare will have had bad experiences with medicine, either personally or in family members or by reading polemics. For those people, the uncontrovertable fact that medicine is imperfect must be given an answer represented by a 1 or a 0. It's not possible to represent the idea that medicine does some good things and some bad, because that requires more than one bit, and bits are in short supply. Therefore, modern medicine has to be declared bad or good. If it is declared bad, then by simple logic (which requires no storage beyond the ability to do logic), then anything other than modern medicine must be declared good, because it is ~modern-medicine. |
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#72 |
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Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Whithin earshot of the North Sea
Posts: 16,600
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Oh. I see this thread has long since gone off topic.
On the original topic: I voted planet X because none of the other options fit my opinion. I think Rouser2, like 1inchChrist and Kumar, is a missionaire. Rouser2 wants to discredit medical science. Why exactly he wants that, I have no idea, it could be some personal vendetta, but he is willing to use any means he can find, including lies. Most people believe they are smarter then most others, so Rouser2 assumes that he can fool us with his hyperbole. For him it is simply propaganda. He may belive some of it, but that is not important. Like all prophets, he only wants to show the way, not walk it. The day he gets that appendicitis, you'll find him flat on his back on an operating table. Hans |
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Don't. Just don't. |
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#73 |
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Anti-homeopathy illuminati member
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: NT 150 511
Posts: 34,312
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Quote:
Rolfe. |
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"The way we vote will depend, ultimately, on whether we are persuaded to hope or to fear." - Aonghas MacNeacail, June 2012. |
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#74 |
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Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Whithin earshot of the North Sea
Posts: 16,600
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Well, any thread with such a self-contradicting title is bound to be derailed.
Rouser2's thought processes, indeed .Hans |
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Don't. Just don't. |
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#75 |
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Graduate Poster
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: London, UK
Posts: 1,403
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"We must favour verifiable evidence over private feeling. Otherwise we leave ourselves vulnerable to those who would obscure the truth." Richard Dawkins - The Enemies of Reason |
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