Characteristics of Different Radiations

[Halo]

Hello

 

I am writing a project about inozing radiation. The aim of the project is to examine the nature of alpha, beta and gamma radiation and describe how they differ. As for now I have been blessed with good information from litterature and I have written a lot. However, I have got myself in a bit of a situation: My project is supposed to include practical measurings of radiation, where I measure some physical quantities of the radiation and compare them to the other radiations. The problem is I do not know what "physical quantities" I can measure and how to put the numbers I get in a context. For example the activity is "easy" to measure, or so I have heard, but I do not think the activity have anything to do with the ionizing radiation itself. The only thing I can think of is measuring their respective energies in a mass spectrometer. It does not have to be physical quantities, instead it could be characteristics, like for example what objects they can go throught.

 

Any help on how I should do this would be greatly appreciated.

[questionposter]

You can try to shoot different types of radiation through different materials and see how much of the different radiations come through. alpha radiation is big helium nuclei, so they are more likely to get "repulsed" by other atoms, even by paper, whereas gamma radiation is really small and localized and is more likely to penetrate even things like sheets of metal.

Edited January 19, 2012 by questionposter

[JohnStu]

Whoa easy there, radioactive substances give off invisible (to eye) death rays!

 

 

[swansont]

Whoa easy there, radioactive substances give off invisible (to eye) death rays!

 

Um, no. It's hard to begin to describe what's wrong with that characterization.

[Halo]

Ok, It has been a while since I posted this.

 

I have measured the activity of gamma rays, when it has passed throught different thickness of some material, like lead and copper for example. This means that I now have the initial activity as well as the decreasing activity, along with thicker material.

 

Would plotting these numbers in a graf make any sense, or how should I make use of them?

[swansont]

Ok, It has been a while since I posted this.

 

I have measured the activity of gamma rays, when it has passed throught different thickness of some material, like lead and copper for example. This means that I now have the initial activity as well as the decreasing activity, along with thicker material.

 

Would plotting these numbers in a graf make any sense, or how should I make use of them?

 

Yes. Since the signal drop from both the attenuation with thickness and with time are exponential, using a semi-log plot would probably be the most useful. You should try to measure them independently, though.