Why doesnt a geiger counter get destroyed by the radiation, while everything else does?

Question

Just watched Chernobyl and saw how “everything” electrical got destroyed from the radiation, but not the geiger counters. Why it that?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Very ELI5:

Think of radiation like little bullets. Think of electronics like a car. Normal cars don’t typically get shot at, so they arent made bulletproof. Getting shot will mess them up. We CAN make bulletproof cars, but its harder and more expensive, so unless they NEED to be bulletproof we dont bother. Similarly, we can make radiation-hardened electronics for things that go into space (whered theres a lot of radiation) or military hardware that needs to work even in a nuclear war.

In this analogy, the geiger counter is a very special car that is designed specifically to drive around and catch any bullet shot at it, and count them. That’s its whole purpose for existing, so it’s designed to do just that.