Looking at this Safecast map, do you know how these values are collected? From the path it looks like it's some kind of mobile collection where user submit data? Are there people walking around with Geiger counters every day?
Can you tell me how to find other stations with the Safecast map?
Rosenthaler Platz station is just blue all-around on that map - maybe I'm doing something wrong?
I don't think I'd worry about that from a radiation standpoint. Natural uranium is only around 1000 times more radioactive than natural potassium, it's really not very bad in that sense and it wouldn't have survived from the birth of the solar system to the present day if it was.
On the other hand, it is a toxic heavy metal so please, please don't eat it.
It's strange that the count increase too much near the wall.
If you have a 1/r^2 decreasement from a point source, the if you have an infinite wall it becomes a constant value that does not decrease with the distance.
Clearly the wall is not infinite, but when the distance from the wall is much smaller (1/5?) than the distance to the border of the wall, the approximation is good enough. The wall is like 8 tiles tall , so I expect the radioactivity at 1/2 tile (15cm, 5in) to be almost equal to the radioactivity when the counter is touching the wall.
Good question. Another intuitive way to view (no pun intended) 1/r^2 law is that the solid angle visible from an isotropic emitter (like supposedly this wall) gives the exact decay coefficient. So near the surface the solid angle is like 1/2 sphere (1/2 4pi), and doesn't change much with distance. Only when you get a bit further away it starts to decrease.
Eventually at large distances, any finite object will have the apparent radius decay as 1/r and solid angle as 1/r^2.
I think in this case it could be atmospheric absorption or just getting near a peak point of emission.
> If you have a 1/r^2 decreasement from a point source, the if you have an infinite wall it becomes a constant value that does not decrease with the distance.
It will still decrease with distance. If you represent the wall as a collection of point sources distributed over a plane, as the distance to the plane diminishes, the distance to individual points do not diminish to and from the same distance as each other, and do not diminish at the same rate. However they still all diminish, and thus the sum intensity must diminish. Though the appropriate function describing the sum of the contributions from each point is no longer 1/d^2.
There will be some continuous equation to describe this... someone more familiar with radiance feel free to chime in!
> Auch an einem eher ungewöhnlichen Ort haben die Mitarbeiter der Behörde schon Messungen durchgeführt. Der U-Bahnhof Rosenthaler Platz rückte wegen seiner vielen orangefarbenen Kacheln ins Visier der Behörde. „Die Farbe wird mit dem Schwermetall Uran hergestellt, weil es beim Brennvorgang sehr hitzebeständig ist“, sagt Leps. Die Strahlung ist laut dem Experten jedoch belanglos. Auch für Menschen, die sich länger auf dem U-Bahnhof aufhalten, besteht keine Gefahr.
In short: "According to experts the radiation is trivial."
If I'm not mistaken that's 0.1137 milisievert / hour. Meaning you have to stand glued to the tiles for about 4 years to get the LD50 lethal dose of about 4000 Sievert. Also, the lethality of the dose only really applies when the exposure is short.
Or, alternatively, the average yearly background radiation of about 2 milisievert takes about 18 hours of being glued to those tiles.
Hm.... I've spent a lot of waiting time in this station (Rosenthaler Platz) over the years.
And these tiles (in different colors though) are in a considerable amount of Berlin subway stations. Are they all radioactive like these here? Or is it only caused by the orange pigment?
Ah that's actually my local ubahn station. I assume the risk is pretty minimal. Unless you spend a lot of time in close proximity to those tiles. Like some homeless people seem to be doing.
Quite a few homeless people stay around for the entire day in this station, leaning against these tiles all the time. Would anyone be able to tell if this is a health risk?
If they are always sitting in front of the tiles, leaning on them with their back, they might have higher skin cancer rates on their back.
But generally, the effect of frequent low doses isn't very well understood, and you could even find specific circumstances where it might be beneficial.
This is great, nice find. I grew up with Uranium-based Fiestaware in the house, and I am looking at a radioactive red vase right now. My dad was a ceramics engineer and researcher. He wrote the book on red ceramic glazes (The Defiant Red), and there is a whole chapter on Uranium.
I was at an antique store where they had numerous pieces of Uranium glass glowing under a UV light last weekend.
I think it's funny that Uranium has this connotation of "glowing in the dark" which has nothing to do with the nuclear properties at all but rather very interesting optical phenomena that happen when you have an atom with a huge number of electrons like the way Thorium Oxide is good for gas lamps because it emits thermally in the visible range but not so much in the infrared.
There is a guy on youtube called "Radioactive Drew". He has some interesting episodes exploring former/current uranium mines and other things related to radioactive substances. He has a video about a postoffice in Burbank California with similar radioactive tiles on the walls. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuZzOVxreK4
[+] [-] jonty|3 years ago|reply
There are other stations on the U-Bahn with uranium tiles too, you can find them with the crowdsourced Safecast radiation map: https://map.safecast.org/?y=52.5002&x=13.4852&z=13&l=0&m=9
[+] [-] secondcoming|3 years ago|reply
It's pretty funny due to it's usage in UK slang. It can mean everything from smoking a cigarette, to snorting cocaine, to oral sex.
[+] [-] dewey|3 years ago|reply
(Wish we had quote-posts on Mastodon, would make it more obvious)
[+] [-] dewey|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sbst32|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Krasnol|3 years ago|reply
Oooh that's nice. I wish they'd have those kits in sale again. Would buy one instantly but no time for fiddling myself this year unfortunately...
[+] [-] 4gotunameagain|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] vinaypai|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Symmetry|3 years ago|reply
On the other hand, it is a toxic heavy metal so please, please don't eat it.
[+] [-] mhd|3 years ago|reply
(I'm aware that I'm writing this on "the orange site"…)
[+] [-] mc32|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] odiroot|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChuckNorris89|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DJBunnies|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gus_massa|3 years ago|reply
If you have a 1/r^2 decreasement from a point source, the if you have an infinite wall it becomes a constant value that does not decrease with the distance.
Clearly the wall is not infinite, but when the distance from the wall is much smaller (1/5?) than the distance to the border of the wall, the approximation is good enough. The wall is like 8 tiles tall , so I expect the radioactivity at 1/2 tile (15cm, 5in) to be almost equal to the radioactivity when the counter is touching the wall.
[+] [-] gnramires|3 years ago|reply
Eventually at large distances, any finite object will have the apparent radius decay as 1/r and solid angle as 1/r^2.
I think in this case it could be atmospheric absorption or just getting near a peak point of emission.
[+] [-] hanslub42|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] perihelions|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomxor|3 years ago|reply
It will still decrease with distance. If you represent the wall as a collection of point sources distributed over a plane, as the distance to the plane diminishes, the distance to individual points do not diminish to and from the same distance as each other, and do not diminish at the same rate. However they still all diminish, and thus the sum intensity must diminish. Though the appropriate function describing the sum of the contributions from each point is no longer 1/d^2.
There will be some continuous equation to describe this... someone more familiar with radiance feel free to chime in!
[+] [-] ff10|3 years ago|reply
> Auch an einem eher ungewöhnlichen Ort haben die Mitarbeiter der Behörde schon Messungen durchgeführt. Der U-Bahnhof Rosenthaler Platz rückte wegen seiner vielen orangefarbenen Kacheln ins Visier der Behörde. „Die Farbe wird mit dem Schwermetall Uran hergestellt, weil es beim Brennvorgang sehr hitzebeständig ist“, sagt Leps. Die Strahlung ist laut dem Experten jedoch belanglos. Auch für Menschen, die sich länger auf dem U-Bahnhof aufhalten, besteht keine Gefahr.
In short: "According to experts the radiation is trivial."
Source (from the toot thread): https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/bleibende-werte-1545553.h...
[+] [-] al2o3cr|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scrlk|3 years ago|reply
11.37 mR/h? Not great, not terrible.
[+] [-] H8crilA|3 years ago|reply
Or, alternatively, the average yearly background radiation of about 2 milisievert takes about 18 hours of being glued to those tiles.
[+] [-] kreldjarn|3 years ago|reply
Apparently there was a brief period in the 20th century when this was a popular way of making yellow glazing.
[+] [-] exo-cortex|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Traubenfuchs|3 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_tile
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_glass
[+] [-] jesperwe|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jillesvangurp|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gpjanik|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nemo44x|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wongarsu|3 years ago|reply
But generally, the effect of frequent low doses isn't very well understood, and you could even find specific circumstances where it might be beneficial.
[+] [-] snitch182|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tilsammans|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PaulHoule|3 years ago|reply
I think it's funny that Uranium has this connotation of "glowing in the dark" which has nothing to do with the nuclear properties at all but rather very interesting optical phenomena that happen when you have an atom with a huge number of electrons like the way Thorium Oxide is good for gas lamps because it emits thermally in the visible range but not so much in the infrared.
[+] [-] azubinski|3 years ago|reply
Personal radiation doses are well known. https://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/radiation/around-us/calculator...
Social. Chaos. OK.
[+] [-] SideburnsOfDoom|3 years ago|reply
"Chaos" likely relates to "Chaos Computer Club" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_Computer_Club and related activities in that part of the world.
A person running around Berlin with a Geiger counter (not on official business) is a CCC kind of hacker.
Of course this comes to us via Jonty Wareing (@[email protected] ), who is involved with the related EMF ( https://www.emfcamp.org/ ) event in the UK.
The Suffix "social" means "this is the social media (mastodon) host".
In fact it says here https://chaos.social "chaos.social – a Fediverse instance for & by the Chaos community"
[+] [-] albertzeyer|3 years ago|reply
I'm not really sure about the unit of the measure here. So how does it compare really?
You need to realize, we are exposed to radiation all the time.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] russianGuy83829|3 years ago|reply