Rolfe
Adult human female
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!)epepke said:
Rolfe.
Rolfe
Adult human female
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.SteveGrenard said:
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
Adult human female
Thank you, Pyrrho, for sparing my blushes.Pyrrho said:
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.
Rolfe
Adult human female
True. Perhaps that was unkind. "What are Rouser's thought processes" would have been better.JamesM said:
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.
Rolfe
Adult human female
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.)wayrad said:If X-rays had that effect, wouldn't exposed and developed X-ray film be quite hazardous?
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.
SteveGrenard said:
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.
SteveGrenard
Philosopher
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2002
- Messages
- 5,528
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?
No, Steve.SteveGrenard said:
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?
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.
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?
You said this:
Laughingstock. Absolute laughingstock. Go peddle nuts somewhere else.
jj said:
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
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:
Woo woo.
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:
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.
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.SteveGrenard said:
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.)
