Chuck's advice is a good one as most first responders have radiation
detectors as part of their equipment. Most hospitals have them as well in
their Radiation Oncology departments and the Pathology Labs as well (we
receive a lot of mildly radioactive tissue specimens that we measure and let
"cool" for a while before handling).
Another thing too, and I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will correct
me if I'm wrong, but I've always been under the impression that exposure of
inert, inorganic material to ionizing radiation does not make it
radioactive. It may induce chemical changes (hence the color change of
precious stones) but does not convert it to a radiative material. To do so
the object must be coated or impregnated with another radioactive substance.
Charlie
On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 6:10 AM, SwissPace <ian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Knowing the wealth of knowledge on this list I am looking for advice on
> how to see if a blue topaz ring I bought my wife is radioactive.
>
> I bought a lovely Blue topaz ring whilst in India and then googled to
> see what it meant only to find natural Blue topaz is very very rare and
> normally they take topaz place it in a nuclear reactor and then heat
> treat it to save the blue colour. There are two methods of doing this,
> one safer than the other, Normally this is well regulated but I am not
> confident that would be the case in India, so the question is how can I
> found out if it is radioactive and if so if its dangerously so, I
> believe from my research a Geiger counter is the wrong item and I really
> don't want to buy one for this time only.
>
> I am thinking of leaving it with a normal ring as control on some
> photographic or Xray film to see if it affects it but I wonder if anyone
> on the list has better suggestions.
>
> --
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>
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