BuildDiary.Net: Build Your Own Cosmic Ray Detector

Build Your Own Cosmic Ray Detector

By: Jim

Date: Wed, September 7, 2005

Ever want to build your own muon detecting telescope so you can get some idea of how many cosmic rays are coming through your roof?

How about just building the elements for your own geiger counter?

Find out at CosmicRays.org.

Because this falls under the realm of telescopes, I almost put this under optics but there are no optical systems involved. So it's electronic.

BTW, from the point of view of someone with a background in physics, this borders on being the coolest project ever... but it's not for anyone who's not serious about a project like this.

Dave: That's awesome! consumerist wanker that I am, I was going to buy a geiger counter through ebay (huge batches of surplus Civil Defense geiger counters are constantly on sale...). Were would I find that really thin wire though... Hehe, lucky me, the wife gets both the Mouser and Digikey catalogs...

Jim: Buying a geiger counter doesn't make you a consumerist wanker. A nerd, maybe.

As for the wiring, I talked with Tim about this and you could make it with thicker wiring but the sensitivity would drop accordingly. In other words, you'd have a tough time telling your gammas from your betas. And as for alpha detection, if the source is emitting enough alpha particles for this thing to monitor them, better make sure your will is in order.

Personally, I want a nice, professional geiger counter to take into those cute antique shops and watch the old ladies behind the counter freak out as the needle pegs when I point it at some Fiesta Ware!

Dave: Did you ever see the little geiger counter app I made for the palm pilot? it would randomly tick away at a rate determined by were you put the stylus on the screen. You could make anything in your environment "radioactive". I fooled people several people with it, most of who should have known better.

It was the best 10 lines of code I ever wrote (Pocketc rocks).

Cecilia: Hehe, I can just hear them saying "Ohh dear..."

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