18 Aug
2004
18 Aug
'04
10 a.m.
No Tony, you must be completely wrong. As lower as
the
energy gets, as more dangerous it is. You know, when
Many a true word is spoken in jest :-). In some cases the more
'penetrating' radiation is less dangerous because it passes straight
through you. I am told, for example, that it can be much more dangerous to
swallow an alpha particle source than a gamma ray source because the
alphas are absorbed by bits of your body and do naaty things, although
sitting on the bench, the alpha source is the safer, since the radiation
is trivial to screen out. Needless to say I have no intention of swallowing
either
Well, I had my most memorable moment when I bough my
condo and had it redone. I hired a friend of mine to
supervise it. She's an architect and did quite a lot
of similar jobs. So while we where discussing what to
do, she asked me if I want an 'all off switch' in the
bed room. I think I must have looked quite stupid, so
Actaully, if I was planning a workshop from scratch (something I've never
had the luxury of doing), I would include an 'all off' switch near the
door and make sure everyone in the house knew about it. Not because I am
worried about radiation, but in case I connected myself to the mains or
something.
she explained that this would be a switch to cut off
power from the outlets and the light, and that a lot
of people doing projects in a similar setting request
that.
When I argued, that outlets where nothing is plugged
in are already off, and the same goes for the light
(when if I switch it off). She told me that there are
'experts' telling people that these lines still engulf
you in low frequency radio waves, and only a complete
cut off will help.
The normally-sane magazine 'Elektor' had a project that connected between
a wall-ward and the mains, and between the wall-wart and its load. The
idea was to power up the wall-wart evey 10 seconds or so to see if the
load was drawing current. If it was, then leave the supply on, it's
needed. If not, turn it off. Yes, it was claimed to reduce radiation from
the wall-wart.
Well, I could go on for hours.
Somebody really needs to give the public a decent scientific education....
-tony