How do we know about Radiation?
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Radiation cannot be seen, heard, smelled, felt or touched. The human senses cannot detect radiation so that one cannot know when he is in danger or not. Radiation can only be known by using a device, called a radiation monitor. The radiation monitor consists of a radiation detector and a supporting electronic circuit. In general, radiation monitors are equipped with an alarm that will emit sound if radiation is found. The alarm sounds louder when the radiation level found is higher. Radiation monitoring is generally used only to determine the presence or absence of radiation.
Monitor radiation used to measure the amount of radiation or dose received by someone called an individual dosimeter and monitor radiation used to measure the speed of radiation or the dose rate in an area known as survaimeter. These tools can be likened to the distance and speedometer indicators on the car. The distance indicator shows how many miles or miles the car has traveled, just as individual dosimeters indicate how many radiations doses a person has received. The speedometer shows us a few kilometers or miles of speed for an hourly car, as surveyors show what the radiation dose rate is.
One way to measure radiation doses on individual dosimeters is based on the blackness of the film when exposed to radiation. By processing the film and measuring its blackness, the radiation dose received by a person can be estimated.
Another way to measure doses is based on the amount of light produced by certain materials due to radiation after the heating process is carried out. This individual dosimeter is called TLD (Thermo Luminescence Dosimeter). TLD is more sensitive and accurate than film dosimeters and can be reused after a dose reading process has been carried out.
In contrast to individual dosimeters that provide information on radiation doses that have been received, surveyors provide information on the rate of radiation doses in an area at a time. The product of the multiplication of the dose rate indicated by the surveyor and the length of time in the area is an estimate of the amount of radiation or dose received when in an area during that time. With this survaimeter, one can keep themselves from being exposed to radiation that exceeds the permitted limit.