
How to build your own particle detector (2015) - gus_massa
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/january-2015/how-to-build-your-own-particle-detector
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alasdair_
I literally just built one of these with my son on Saturday and I'm almost
certain we used this exact article as a guide (along with a video we found on
youtube).

(As an aside, "Quantum Physics for Dummies" is surprisingly readable and
concise)

TIPS: If your fishtank lid is especially cheap, the dry ice may crack it.
Also, make sure you place the tank in a room that you can make completely dark
- trying to move the thing to a darker room destroys the trails :)

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Toast_
Adding a radioactive check-source, like a thorium welding rod, may produce
some interesting results. ;)

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lucb1e
People often bring up bananas as everyday radioactive objects. Would they even
show up if you hold one next to the tank?

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Florin_Andrei
I've a cheap Geiger that can detect alpha, beta, and gamma. Bananas do nothing
that my detector can measure.

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gus_massa
From [https://xkcd.com/radiation/](https://xkcd.com/radiation/)

* Eating a banana: 0.1 µSv

* Background daily dose: 10 µSv

The calculation is probably more complicated, but as a back of the envelope
estimation I expect that a banana increase the background radiation in a 1%:
So it will be difficult to measure with a cheap equipment just counting the
number of detections.

[If your device can measure the energy of the particles, perhaps you can see
some peak?]

[If you log all the event for a day, with and without a banana, perhaps the 1%
difference is statistically significant.]

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asciimo
This is amazing. I've never heard of this technique and I'm excited I can try
this in my kitchen. (Though it could end up being a very expensive hobby...)

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khedoros1
This is what I expected to see from the article posted the other day linking
to [http://www.build-your-own-particle-detector.org](http://www.build-your-
own-particle-detector.org) !

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molsongolden
Interesting article.

I found this youtube video showing a similar setup in action:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMaDqaRzDm4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMaDqaRzDm4)

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bipr0
Nice and interesting. but i think it have much more potential.

