Building and Calibrating a Geiger Meter and Mapping Radiation
Gilchrist, Will; Wesley, Rachel
Radiation commonly refers to the photons or subatomic particles that are expelled from
atomic nuclei during decay or fission. It is an unavoidable fact of daily life; the body is
bombarded with radiation every minute. Sources include heavy elements in the air and ground
as well as cosmic gamma rays. Small amounts of radiation are effectively harmless. However,
long term exposure to excess radiation increases the probability of cancerous mutations, as the
high energy events have some small chance to damage crucial segments of DNA.
Unaided, a human cannot detect radiation. A wide range of devices can detect radiation
with varying levels of precision depending on the type of radiation. In this project, we construct
and calibrate two Geiger-Muller meters, or Geiger meters for short. While simple, these
detectors are effective at detecting a wide range of radiation. We also calibrate the devices with
the end goal of geographically measuring the radiation of Swarthmore College.
This report details the construction and calibration of the Geiger meters as well as the
data collection process. We present 3D heatmaps of radiation around Swarthmore College.
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