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funraniumIf I hadn't been there having ignorance admitted to me by a grad student, I wouldn't have believed it either.
His grave assumption, which luckily does not lead to a grave, was that the isotope Cr-51 (a low energy gamma emitter) behaves pretty much like P-32 (a high energy beta emitter) in terms of radiological hazard and control. Normally, you shield the beta from P-32 with a plexiglas (perspex for you bootlickers of the Queen) to stop them without creating a whole bunch of x-rays from bremsstrahlung. Plastic is not generally used to stop x-rays and gamma. Very luckily for him, his choice to use the proper shielding for P-32 isn't entirely useless in this case because Cr-51's gamma is so weak. If he'd tried this trick with Cs-137 or Co-60...
The principal investigator in the lab saw him working in the hood with his set up and stopped him immediately, telling him that he had used the wrong kind of shielding and better call Radiation Safety right away. So, by the time I had collected information and showed up to have him demonstrate what he was doing a few hours later he, along with his labmates, were almost sweating with panic, convinced that he had taken a medically significant, possibly career-ending dose. The look of relief on his face when I told him, and then did the math in front of him proving it, that worst case scenario he had taken a trivial dose that we wouldn't be able to pick up on our normal dosimetry anyway made him tremndously happy. His extra distance and the marginal help of the plastic shield would have decreased his dose even more.
He then said, with the kind of truth and candor that only a gallows reprieve can bring, that he'd never looked up anything about Cr-51, just assumed that the controls he learned for P-32 back as an undergrad would be fine, that he didn't know what the proper control techniques were, and could we please teach him. He did this in front of at least one female lab mate that could petition to join LLNL's Strategic Hot Chicks Reserve. To be a physics grad student admitting ignorance to a non-professor is exposing the tender pink belly to claws submission move; to do so in front of a girl when your typical route to impressing, regardless of appropriateness or likelihood of success, is scientific acumen is unheard of in my experience. I will be checking back with this guy in the future. I think he's got promise.
The only black cloud in the sky in this is that the PI who had approved him to work with Cr-51, while knowing the difference between beta and gamma, also doesn't have the firmest grip on how radiation actually works.
Luckily, there are people like me.
His grave assumption, which luckily does not lead to a grave, was that the isotope Cr-51 (a low energy gamma emitter) behaves pretty much like P-32 (a high energy beta emitter) in terms of radiological hazard and control. Normally, you shield the beta from P-32 with a plexiglas (perspex for you bootlickers of the Queen) to stop them without creating a whole bunch of x-rays from bremsstrahlung. Plastic is not generally used to stop x-rays and gamma. Very luckily for him, his choice to use the proper shielding for P-32 isn't entirely useless in this case because Cr-51's gamma is so weak. If he'd tried this trick with Cs-137 or Co-60...
The principal investigator in the lab saw him working in the hood with his set up and stopped him immediately, telling him that he had used the wrong kind of shielding and better call Radiation Safety right away. So, by the time I had collected information and showed up to have him demonstrate what he was doing a few hours later he, along with his labmates, were almost sweating with panic, convinced that he had taken a medically significant, possibly career-ending dose. The look of relief on his face when I told him, and then did the math in front of him proving it, that worst case scenario he had taken a trivial dose that we wouldn't be able to pick up on our normal dosimetry anyway made him tremndously happy. His extra distance and the marginal help of the plastic shield would have decreased his dose even more.
He then said, with the kind of truth and candor that only a gallows reprieve can bring, that he'd never looked up anything about Cr-51, just assumed that the controls he learned for P-32 back as an undergrad would be fine, that he didn't know what the proper control techniques were, and could we please teach him. He did this in front of at least one female lab mate that could petition to join LLNL's Strategic Hot Chicks Reserve. To be a physics grad student admitting ignorance to a non-professor is exposing the tender pink belly to claws submission move; to do so in front of a girl when your typical route to impressing, regardless of appropriateness or likelihood of success, is scientific acumen is unheard of in my experience. I will be checking back with this guy in the future. I think he's got promise.
The only black cloud in the sky in this is that the PI who had approved him to work with Cr-51, while knowing the difference between beta and gamma, also doesn't have the firmest grip on how radiation actually works.
Luckily, there are people like me.
