Just watched Chernobyl and saw how “everything” electrical got destroyed from the radiation, but not the geiger counters. Why it that?
In: Biology
Well, electricity and radiation are both waves in the same ocean and the stronger wave will overpower the smaller one and it just so happens that dangerous radiation is the stronger wave compared to electricity.
So say you are measuring the small waves in a small area of the ocean, and some powerful wave comes by and ruins your measurements, this is the case for most electronic devices, there’s many small parts measuring their own region of the ocean, and when a big wave comes by, they don’t know how to measuring by them selves, so they shut down.
Geiger counters look for these big waves and give you a message everytime they see one.
In other words geiger counters work opposite, ignoring small signals and reacting to big ones.
Radiation interact with eletronics by creating ” random” currents in conductors, this messes up sensitive eletronics if they are not shielded.
the counter itself, in overly simplistic terms.,is not much more than a speaker of sorts connected to a wire and what you hear is the currents being picked up on the wire.
Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh
**HBO’s “Chernobyl” is not a documentary. It’s a drama series. What you see in it is made up to make good TV.**
Hey, a thing im qualified to speak about! We’ll call radiation zoomies because thats what we call it at work. When zoomies hit a gieger counter it produces a little electrical pulse which is amplified and put through a speaker which makes the chirping noise. it is designed to do this so it can detect zoomies at really low levels. But at high levels similar things happen inside electronics making little pulses, which for complex computer based systems can cause a 0 to flip to a 1. Depending on where that happens it can kill the functionality of the system and since in high zoomie areas this is happening a lot so it has a high chance of killing complex systems. Due to the nature of neutron zoomies (the type experienced near active or recently active nuclear fuel) this can make the thing exposed to zoomies also radioactive itself, which makes it hard to fix easily.
Tldr the gieger counter is simple and the computers are complex so they are more resistant.
Edit: also during chernobyl several radiation measuring devices did fail, though whether the failure was due to high radiation or soviet era contruction and quality control is not known.
Geiger counters are designed to detect radiation, not absorb it. They are made with materials that can withstand exposure to radiation without breaking down. Other electronics, on the other hand, are not designed to handle high levels of radiation and can become damaged or destroyed.
A Geiger counter is designed to detect radiation without being damaged by it. It has a special sensor that measures radiation levels without absorbing significant amounts.
That’s a great question! From what I understand, Geiger counters are specifically designed to detect and measure radiation, so they’re made with materials that can withstand exposure to it without getting damaged. It’s pretty cool how technology can work in such specialized ways.
The reason why geiger counters don’t get destroyed by radiation is that they are specifically designed to detect and measure radiation. They are constructed with materials that can withstand exposure to radiation, and the sensitive components are shielded from the radiation to prevent damage. Other electrical equipment, on the other hand, may not be designed to handle high levels of radiation and can be damaged or destroyed by exposure.
The Geiger counters have e.g. a vacuum tube that is designed to conduct when the content gas gets ionized. The gas will un-ionize itself.
The electronic parts are shielded because they are expected to be used in harsh conditions. Without that the ions would make the chips conduct where they are not supposed to or it destroys conductors. Both aren’t reversible.
Mainly because most things aren’t destroyed by radiation. Organic stuff is, because we’re so dang complicated, same for computers.
But a geiger counter, to vastly oversimplify the physics, is just a tube with gas that turns radiation into a bit of electricity plus some very robust and basic electrical components that turn those electrical signals into something you can read on a dial.
It’s built specifically to be exposed to radiation, so we make it in a way that can handle a lot of radiation exposure. For the same reason you don’t make pool toys out of something that dissolves in water.
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