What does the reading on a Geiger meter equate to in physical effects?

Question

I know 0.2 isn’t very worrisome but 1.5 is. What is the difference in the physical effects between these readings and readings 2.0+?

Thanks 🙂

In: 40

Answer 1

It (of course) depends. In this case, it depends on the units that the counter displays.

Usually a Geiger counter measures something per unit of time. If you’re looking for contamination, that may be events per second. If you’re using it as a radiation exposure meter, it’s usually a unit like microGray per hour. Total dose is then calculated by integrating over the time you’ve been carrying the meter.

These alternative measurements are all based on the counts per second metric, where a “count” is an electron cascade initiated by ionizing radiation entering the Geiger tube. Usually this count per second measurement should be adjusted for dead time.