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In case it wasn't obvious:
Using a *cumulative* counter and a clock is a Good Thing,
much preferable to using a resettable incremental counter
and an interval timer. Most of the lab procedures I've
seen call for the latter, which causes loss of information.
-- If you have the cumulative data and want the incremental
data, you can always get it by subtraction.
-- If you have only the incremental data for "selected"
intervals, you have no idea what was going on between
those intervals.
The cumulative data allowed me to plot both the Laurels and
the Hardys, as discussed in the previous message. It turns
out that the Hardys contain a lot of good information. If
you thought of the Laurels as "the" readings, all the Hardy
information would get thrown away.
It's often amazing how small details in the lab technique
can have a large impact on the outcome. I've seen patent
lawyers ask: You succeeded, but what did you do differently
from the thousands of guys who tried the same thing and
failed? Then it takes a year to answer the question.
Unrelated issue: On 10/12/21 11:06 PM, Paul Nord wrote:
My concern about modeling the background is not about what the value
is. Rather, I’m doubtful that the background is constant over
several days. The sensitivity of the detector might also not be
stable over the long time. That would show up as very much the same
thing.
Do we know where the background is coming from?
What's the physics?
My ill-informed thoughts include:
*) I assume the apparatus is well shielded against alphas
and betas, so we need to hunt for gamma sources, which
are a lot harder to shield against.
*) Even if the background is not variable, it's high enough
to be annoying. I've seen lab writeups on the web that report
a lower background, around 0.7 events per second.
A variable background is even worse. So we need to hunt for
variable as well as non-variable sources.
*) There's a lot of radon in Porter County. The indoor action
limit is 4pCi per liter, which is .15 Bq per liter, i.e. .15
decays per second per liter, which seems like a lot. The
radon decay chain produces some gammas.
The indoor amount of radon might depend on which way the wind
is blowing and other hard-to-control factors.
*) People are full of potassium, which emits gammas. However
my estimates suggest this is not enough to be significant.
Almost, but not quite. So I don't think people near the
apparatus are a problem.
*) The cosmic ray secondary flux is variable, but it's not
super huge. I haven't found any good data on how much of
it is gammas.
*) I hate to ask dumb questions, but is there any chance your
lab bench has a beautiful granite countertop?
Granite is notoriously rich in gamma emitters.
*) Is there any chance your shielding materials are slightly
radioactive? Probably not, but stranger things have happened.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel
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