Alcohol on the plane? Sure to!

Last year, our team Tyap-Lyap assembled a device for the iPhone, which measures the background radiation. I was instructed to be a Do-Ra background tester in the conditions of the Alps and Aeroflot.
In the Alps, the dora-von did not detect any radiation crime at altitudes up to 2000 meters, but on the plane I intended to understand that I understood the Russian subconscious tendency to get drunk in flight.

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Simply, the essence of radioactivity lies in the natural instability of the nuclei of atoms of a number of elements, leading them to decay. Alpha, Beta and Gamma Radiation are released.
Alpha radiation has minimal penetration, but high energy. Run, penetration of a few mm. We are hiding from him behind a thick burqa.
Beta radiation has less energy than Alpha radiation, penetrates 10-20 cm. We hide from it behind a concrete wall.
Gamma radiation has energy less than that of Alpha and Beta radiation. But the penetrating ability exceeds several orders of magnitude and is up to 200 m. It is useless to hide. Gamma rays and catch all known household dosimeters.

The measure of the biological effects of radiation on the human body was measured in X-rays (P), now suddenly in Sievert (Sv).
For more convenience, the level of radiation in our device is measured in microsieverts per hour (µSv / h). Prehistoric microroentgens are used only by those who remember the October Revolution.
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The introduction is over, read to everyone from here

I turned on the iPhone, docked the Do-Ra into the audio jack and boarded the plane.
At the start at the airport of Chambery, the natural radiation background was 0.10 μSv / h.
At an altitude of 3000 meters, the radiation background fluctuated within 0.15-0.18 μSv / h. I took off my shoes. I have clean socks.
At an altitude of 6000 meters, the background radiation level was in the range of 0.30-0.34 μSv / h. I glanced approvingly at the legs of the flight attendant.
At an altitude of 8800 meters, the background radiation level was already 0.72-0.76 μSv / h. I was covered in sweat.
At an altitude of 10100 meters, the background radiation level rose to 1.02-1.12 μSv / h. I was worried and shod my shoes. The Russians were quietly drinking around.
Finally, at the extreme height of our route 10700 meters, the background reached 1.22-1.35 μSv / h. Pale, I ordered a bottle of red wine and I don’t remember all the rest. But the numbers in the notebook brought still sober.



A day later I rechecked my measurements during the flight to Minsk. The flight was 1 hour and 15 minutes, but at an altitude of about 10,000 meters (navigators on the internal lines inside the cabin, unfortunately, no), DO-RA measurements showed an even higher background radiation. Its peak was 1.66-1.75 µSv / h.

During the period of air travel, the dose of radiation of my body was about 4 μSv. This is too little to worry about, because if we take the permissible radiation dose for the population - 1 mSv = 1000 μSv (on average, but not more than 5 mSv per year, NRB-99), then in Moscow for a year it turns out not more than 0.8 mSv . Against this background, an increase of 0.004 mSv is hardly noticeable.

findings

Nevertheless, I recommend that programmers who frequently fly to California to insure during their flight, thin the free radicals that are permanently formed in blood, with red French wine.

In the Do-Ra program, it is necessary to build in the monitoring of the route and, in addition to the GPS coordinates, attach the height of the user above sea level to the events.