How can you determine if and how much radioactive material is in a container?
Unfortunately, we now have to answer another question:
“How can one determine if and how much radioactive material is in a container?”
To answer this, one must know that radioactive substances emit particles and/or radiation.
Note:
Further information for a deeper understanding can be found here:
Schematic representation of the emission of photons (gamma rays) from an atomic nucleus, composed of protons (red) and neutrons (gray).
For our further consideration, we will only look at the radiation produced, specifically the so-called gamma radiation. One can think of it like visible light, but it has much greater energy, which is why gamma radiation cannot be “seen” (at least not with the human eye).
As you can infer from the restriction in parentheses, there is indeed another way to “see” gamma radiation: through the use of special detection systems. These convert the gamma radiation that hits the detector into electrical signals, which can then be processed further. This means that with such a detection system, we can determine how much radiation enters the detector and what energy it has. How exactly this works is not important for the further considerations. What matters is that this information can be stored.
