Re: [Phys-l] radiation data in the Fukushima area

[ludwik kowalski <kowalskil@mail.montclair.edu>]

Thank you for sharing, John. The color code is described at the lower  
left corner of each display. It would be useful if  someone specified  
the time (recently or several months ago) when the reported levels of  
radiation were measured.

Ludwik
==============================================


On Sep 2, 2011, at 3:09 PM, John Denker wrote:

> As you know, sometimes I really like to see the raw data.
>
> Here is some recently-released data on radiation levels in the
> Fukushima area, in the form of color-coded maps:
>  http://www.meti.go.jp/earthquake/nuclear/pdf/monitor02_01.pdf  (01)
>  http://www.meti.go.jp/earthquake/nuclear/pdf/monitor02_02.pdf  (02)
>
> Note that the data is very incomplete.  You can't just look at
> it from a distance and imagine that anything that's not red is
> not a problem, because there are significant areas that probably
> would be red but just haven't been measured.
>
> The "01" file represents radiation in the air 1 meter above ground
> level.  The "02" file represents radiation in the air 1 /centimeter/
> above ground level.
>
> Note that the 1cm readings are not uniformly higher than the 1m
> readings, which suggests there is some uncertainty in the data,
> more uncertainty than I would have expected.
>
> There is more data of this type.  Pointers can be found in
> this press release:
>  http://www.meti.go.jp/earthquake/nuclear/20110901.html
>
> The press release is in Japanese.  Note that you can obtain
> passable (albeit far from fluent) translations from Japanese
> to English via
>  http://translation.babylon.com/japanese/
>
> ======================
>
> There have been hundreds of news stories that allude to this
> data.  I really wish news reports that are based on a press
> release would link to the original press release, so I don't
> need to spend my time hunting for it.  I'm not accusing them
> of plagiarism, because they dutifully attribute the data to "a
> government spokesman" ... I'm just saying that it costs them
> nothing to include an actual detailed link, and it would make
> life a lot easier for anybody who wants to dig deeper.
>
> If the reporters need motivation to include links, here is
> one motivation:  I tend to trust a secondary source more if
> it invites me to check the primary sources.
> _______________________________________________
> Forum for Physics Educators
> Phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
> https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l

=======================================================================
Ludwik Kowalski, whose profile is at:

http://pages.csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/my_profile.html