- #106
Drakkith
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re: Sievert vs Gray, it just irritates me immensely to see a Geiger counter that advertises it's giving out Sv. The bloody thing doesn't even do Grays on gamma very well, the thing overcounts betas - yet it proudly says microSieverts/hour.
I understand. But the issue isn't that it reads in microSieverts/hour. ANY measurement system will be just as accurate on that device as any other one. The key, I believe, is to make it as accurate as possible.
But how accurate are those estimates? We all know them are imperfect; nothing is perfect; and so on and so forth. In science, each number has error range.
When you say it is imperfect, please tell how much do you think it is imperfect. The "imperfect measurement" is a tautology.
And? The fact is that the system is in use and it works, whether you agree with how accurate it is or not. Is there another way of doing it that works better in that situation?
Your entire post goes off on a tangent about things that aren't remotely close to dealing with counting sieverts on a geiger counter. Do you really think that they never took any of your situations into account when they designed the system and when they use it? Ludicrous!
You might not like the fact that there are error ranges and estimates and such, but in the end it doesn't matter. There isn't any other way of determining these things.
And just to make sure everyone knows my position, I'll say it again.
I think there were serious mistakes made in the running of the NPP's in Japan. I think there are currently and will be more mistakes made everywhere. But my opinion is that the gain is worth the risk as long we err more on the side of caution than we have in Japan.