Health and Radiation Physics

Heiko Timmers
A lecture course
for 2nd year students of physics
University of New South Wales
Australian Defence Force Academy
July 2003
Contents
1 Bones and body mechanics 1
1.1 Mechanical representation of the human skeleton . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 Standing, bending, lifting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 Walking and running . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.4 Bone: A good material choice? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2 The eye and vision 13
2.1 Cornea, iris, lens and retina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2 Colour perception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.3 Exploring vision with simple experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3 Hearing 21
3.1 Hearing sensitivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.2 Structure of the ear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.3 Outer ear and middle ear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.4 Inner ear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4 Alpha-decay 33
5 Beta-decay 43
5.1 The story of a carbon atom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
5.2 Carbon-14 dating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
6 Gamma-decay 55
6.1 Nuclear medicine: history and modern practice . . . . . . . . . . . 56
6.2 Gamma-rays in nuclear medicine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
6.3 The equivalence of energy and mass: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
6.4 Scintillation detectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
6.5 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
7 Appendix 67
7.1 First in-class test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
References 85
iii
Chapter 1
Bones and body mechanics
1
2
Figure 1.1: The three lever classes and schematic examples of each in the body. W is a
weight, F is the reaction force at the Fulcrum point and M is the muscle force.
The adult human body has 206 bones, forming the skeleton, which gives the
body static rigidity and in conjunction with joints, ligaments and muscles allows
dynamic motion. Insights into fundamental body actions, such as walking, running,
or lifting loads, which are generally so familiar that we rarely analyze them, can be
gained by applying mechanics principles. This can explain for example, why each
person has a dierent advantageous step frequency, which surfaces require short
strides, or why certain lifting techniques pose a health risk.
Bone is a complex, living composite-material. It appears better suited than any
synthetic material for its purpose, so that it is interesting to explore how our bone
material provides the functionality required to ensure survival.
1.1 Mechanical representation of the human skeleton
The complexity of the human skeleton can be reduced by distinguishing three
classes of lever action, see Fig. 1.1. The classes may be dened as follows:
Class 1 The fulcrum F is between the load W and the point where the muscle
tendons are attached M.
Class 2 W is between M and F.
Class 3 M is between fulcrum F and load W.
For an equilibrium situation, for example holding a weight in your hand or
bending over, each of the three forces (W, F, and M) can be calculated, if one of
the other forces and the geometrical dimensions are known. This is possible, since
for a static equilibrium, both, the vector sum of all external forces

F
ex
, and the
Bones and body mechanics 3
Figure 1.2: The forearm. (a) The muscle and bone system. (b) Forces and dimensions: R is
the reaction force of the humerus on the ulna joint. (c) The weight of the arm H is included
at its centre of gravity.
vector sum of all external torques
ex
(about any point) are zero, i.e.

F = 0 (1.1)

= 0 (1.2)
Exercise 1 Which lever class represents the forearm, when holding a weight? For
the forearm shown in Fig. 1.2 calculate the muscle force M required to hold a weight
W = 1 kg in the hand. What reaction force R acts on the ulna bone at the joint
with the humerus bone (fulcrum) for this weight. For a rst estimate ignore the
mass of the arm. Then include the mass of the arm (1.5 kg) in your calculation.
Exercise 2 An exercise device is used to strengthen the leg muscles, see Fig. 7.1.
Calculate the force M exerted by the muscle in the upper leg, when moving the foot
forward to lift the weight. What is the reaction force exerted onto the joint?
Experience tells that it is more dicult to hold a weight when the forearm is
at angle below or above the horizontal and that a weight can be sustained the
longest, when forearm and body are at a right angle. This suggests that the muscle
4
Figure 1.3: Mechanical representation of an exercise to strengthen the leg muscles [Mc-
Cormick & Elliot 2001].
force M is angle dependent. Indeed, for the torque at the joint of humerus and
ulna it follows, using the same weight and dimensions as in Fig. 1.2, that
= (30 cm 10 N + 14 cm 15 N) cos (1.3)
The torque thus increases with angle, however, since
M =

4 cm cos
(1.4)
the muscle force required remains constant with angle . The apparent diculty in
holding a weight o the horizontal must therefore have a dierent reason. Indeed, it
is found that this is a consequence of muscle physiology, which gives most strength
at the muscle resting length, in between the two extremes of a fully stretched
muscle and that of a contracted muscle.
1.2 Standing, bending, lifting
The mechanics of the spine may be investigated by treating the spine approximately
as a rigid beam. When a person stands erect, the weight of the upper body W
is directly over the legs and little force is exerted by the back and leg muscles.
This changes, and considerable muscle work is then required, for an overweight or
pregnant condition, since the person needs to tilt slightly backwards.
It can be estimated that a disk between vertebrae in the spine column is likely
to be damaged or even ruptures, when it experiences pressures of the order of 10
7
Pa, which is about 100 at.
Bones and body mechanics 5
Figure 1.4: Bending at an angle of 60

to the vertical with and without load L; W is the

upper body weight, M is the force of the back muscles, exerted on the spine at a distance d
from its base [McCormick & Elliot 2001].
Exercise 3 A person has a body mass of 75 kg and an upper body length of d, see
Fig. 1.4. (a) Estimate the force M required from the back muscles, when the person
bends to an angle of 60

to the vertical. (b) What pressure does the lumbrosacral

disk at the base of the spine experience? (c) How do these values change, when
the person lifts a weight of 20 kg? (d) For what bending angles with respect to the
vertical is the pressure on the spinal disks the largest?
The exercise shows that lifting heavy objects by bending over can increase the
pressure on the disks between the vertebrae of the spine to values, which come
close to their mechanical strength of about 10
7
Pa. This is illustrated in more
detail in Fig. 1.5.
1.3 Walking and running
For a human standing still, the body weight is balanced by the reaction force

G
of the ground pointing in the opposite direction than the force associated with the
weight,

W =

G. When walking or running, an additional force comes into play,

6
Figure 1.5: (top) The average pressure on disks of the spine for dierent lifting situations.
(bottom) The pressure as a function of time for the two extreme cases.
Bones and body mechanics 7
material pair
st

sl
steel on steel 0.15 0.10 - 0.05
steel on ice 0.027 0.014
leather on metal 0.6 0.4
oak on oak 0.58 0.48
blocked tire on dry street 0.8
blocked tire on wet street 0.5
blocked tire on ice 0.05
Table 1.1: Coecients
st
and
sl
for static and sliding friction, respectively, for some
material pairs.
the frictional force associated with the ground

F, which is directed horizontally,
either in the direction of motion or opposite to it. The magnitude of the friction
force is found to be a constant fraction of the normal force

N
|

F| =
st
|

N| (1.5)
where
st
is the coecient of static friction, which is low for slippery surfaces and
high for rm ground. For a horizontal surface the normal force is equal to the
weight (

N =

W), so that
|

F| =
st
|

W| (1.6)
The coecient of sliding friction
sl
is dened equivalently. Table 1.1 gives some
characteristic values.
It is interesting that the coecient for sliding friction is always smaller than that
for static friction. This explains for example, why it is usually dicult to avoid a
fall on a slope, once your boots have lost grip.
Exercise 4 Using a wooden board, sheet metal, a ruler and a weight, measure the
static and sliding coecients of friction for your shoe or boot on wood and on the
metal. Give a rough estimate of the experimental uncertainty.
The reaction force

G and the friction force

F combine to give a net force, which
either stops or propels our strides, see Figure 1.6 The net force points more upward,
the smaller the friction force is. Thus for slippery surfaces, it pays o to make
short strides, so that the momentum of the foot is directed downward rather than
forward.
Figure 1.7 illustrates that walking legs are like two pendulums, which swing back
and forth, and that most of the energy is used to move the mass associated with
the legs forward and backward, rather than for lifting the feet of the ground. Since
the least energy is required, when a pendulum swings with its eigen-frequency, it
is advantageous to walk steady and move the legs at the eigen-frequency of our
motoric system. Speed can then be controlled by varying the length of the strides.
When running, the number of strides per second has to be increased and more
energy is needed. In addition, we lean forward and launch the body into brief leaps.
8
Figure 1.6: Forces acting on the foot when walking.
Figure 1.7: Action of the leg muscles in walking [McCormick & Elliot 2001].
Bones and body mechanics 9
Figure 1.8: Action of the leg muscles in running [McCormick & Elliot 2001].
Still, the centre-of-mass of our body barely moves in the vertical and thus little
energy is consumed to account for the slight changes in potential energy associated
with such movements, see Fig. 1.8
1.4 Bone: A good material choice?
The theory of evolution would suggest that our natural bone material is optimized
for its purpose. The question arises, if this can be supported with physics argu-
ments. The following properties may be considered important for bones:
Strength, to sustain large forces
Elasticity, to avoid damage and thus immobility, which to a prehistoric human
being was equivalent to death
Low weight, to reduce the energy, and thus the food, required to carry the
bones around
Self-repair, to counter wear, achieve longevity, and regain mobility following
damage
It is instructive to compare the properties of bone with those of other common
materials. This shows that bones are by far not the strongest materials available.
The compressive breaking stress of trabecular bone is 2.2 N/mm
2
, which is two or-
ders of magnitude lower than than of granite (145 N/mm
2
) and steel (552 N/mm
2
).
However, as demonstrated earlier, our bones are strong enough to sustain pressures
of tens of atmospheres.
Elasticity may be characterized using Youngs modulus
Y =
L
L

F
A
(1.7)
where F is the force pulling a cylinder, A the cross-section area of the cylinder, and
L is its length. An elastic material extends a fair distance L for a given force F,
10
whereas an inelastic material does not. Thus a low modulus corresponds to good
elasticity. Trabecular bone has a Young modulus of 0.76 N/mm
2
, which is much
lower than that of other strong biological materials such as oak (110 N/mm
2
), but
not as low as the modulus of rubber (0.01 N/mm
2
).
It is not immediately clear, why elasticity should be so important for bones.
This may be illustrated using a car crashing into, say, a tree at about 50 km/h. In
this case and without air bag and seat belt, the drivers head impacts on the dash
board with a velocity of about 15 m/sec and 5 mm of skin are the only protection
for the skull bone. The force to be sustained by the skull bone can be estimated
from the deceleration time
t =
x
v
=
5 10
3
m
15 m/s

= 0.3 10
3
s (1.8)
The force F to be sustained in this case is therefore of the order of
F =
p
t
=
4 kg 15 m/s
0.3 10
3
s
= 200, 000 N (1.9)
where it has been assumed that the mass of the head is about 4 kg. The impacting
force is equivalent to a weight of 20 tons ! The elasticity of bone reduces this force
somewhat by increasing the deceleration time t. However, it can be estimated
with Eqs 1.8 and 1.9 that the skull bone would have to give by almost one meter
to reduce the impacting force to below 100 kg. Since this is not possible without
lethal damage, the need for other crunch zones, as provided by the body of the car
or an air bag, is emphasized.
With regard to low weight compact bone actually performs poorly. The den-
sity of compact bone (1.9 g/cm
3
) is larger than that of water, compared to only
0.1 g/cm
3
for balsa wood, another biological material, which might have been used
in its place, however, would lack sucient strength. The large density of compact
bone very much explains the prevalence of structured, trabecular bone in the body.
Trabecular (Latin for comprised of beams) refers to the fact that most bone has
a cathedral-like structure shown in Figure 1.9, which, as for the comparison, gives
great strength with a minimum of material and weight.
It is interesting to note, in an age where materials science aims for so-called
nano-structured materials, that bone is a good example for a nano-structured
material, since it consists of particles of bone mineral (Ca
10
PO
4
OH
2
) with dimen-
sions of the order of about 10 nm, which are extremely hard, but form elastic
polymer tubes of collagen, which are typically about 200 nm large. The tubes
combine to form trabecular cells, with diameters of about half-a-millimeter, which
give bone its spongy appearance.
During our life-time the structure of bone changes to adapt to changing require-
ments (Wolfs law). The elasticity required for babies and toddlers is reected by
large cells, whereas the more dense bone material of adults gives more strength at
the expense of elasticity. This is shown in Fig. 1.10
Bones and body mechanics 11
Figure 1.9: This micrograph shows the spongy, cathedral-like structure of trabecular bone.
Figure 1.10: Bone cross-sections at dierent stages of a humans life. Baby bones (a, d) have
relatively large cells giving elasticity, compared to adult bones (b,c,e), which are structured
more densely to increase strength.
12
In summary, it may be stated that there certainly exist many materials, which
exceed bone with regard to either strength, elasticity, or weight. However, none
of those reconciles these three properties better than trabecular bone and also
allows for continuous restructuring to adapt to the changing human body, while in
addition oering the option of biological repair following damage.
Chapter 2
The eye and vision
13
14
Figure 2.1: Cross-section of the human eye [McCormick & Elliot 2001].
The capabilities of the human eye are remarkable, when compared to even advanced
high-tech cameras:
rapid automatic focussing
wide angle of view, while simultaneously detailed vision at large distances
brain transforms images from both eyes into three-dimensional perception
operation over a large range of light intensities: from dark night to bright day
(7 orders of magnitude!)
some self-repair of local damage
2.1 Cornea, iris, lens and retina
Figure 2.1 show a cross-section through the human eye. Several properties of the
eye can be understood by modelling it using the concepts of geometrical optics. In
this approach the combination of cornea and lens may be viewed as a converging
lens, while the iris determines how much light is focussed onto the retina, which is
equivalent to an image screen.
It is interesting that the cornea breaks the incident light much more strongly
than the eye lens, which nevertheless is the active component of the lens system
and ne-tunes the focussing. The strong breaking power of the cornea results from
its relatively large refractive index of n
co
= 1.37. Table 2.1 compares this value
with those for other media.
The eye and vision 15
refractive index n
cornea 1.37
eye lens 1.41
vacuum 1
air 1.003
water 1.33
glass 1.5 - 1.9
diamond 2.42
Table 2.1: Refractive indices of some media.
Figure 2.2: Reection and refraction of a light-ray at a plane glass surface [Halliday et al.
1993].
A light-ray incident on the eye passes from air with a refractive index n
air
= 1.003
into the watery medium of the cornea. As for any such transition between two
transparent media at the interface both reection and refraction are observed.
This is demonstrated for air and glass in Fig. 2.2.
The phenomenon is described within geometrical optics by the law of reection

1
=

1
(2.1)
and Snells law of refraction
n
2
sin
2
= n
1
sin
1
(2.2)
16
Figure 2.3: Denition of focal length [McCormick & Elliot 2001]. (a) converging. (b)
diverging.
and can be explained by a change in wave velocity which for every medium is given
by
v = c/n (2.3)
where c is the speed of light.
When n
2
> n
1
, it follows from Eq. 2.2 that
2
<
1
and the ray is refracted
toward the surface normal. The relatively large change of wave velocity at the
cornea surface is thus responsible for the strong breaking power of the cornea.
Exercise 5 (a) Why is it easier under water to obtain a well focussed view with
the help of a face mask as compared to not wearing a mask? (b) Calculate the
change in direction for a light-ray incident on the cornea at an angle of 25

.
Refraction can be exploited for focussing or de-focussing by curving the interface
between two media of dierent refractive indices and making a lens. Lenses are
either converging, e.g. convex lenses, or diverging, e.g. a concave lenses. The focal
length of a lens f, which denes the lens power p, is equal to the distance between
the optical centre of the lens and the focal point for rays of light which are incident
on the lens and parallel to its optical axis. This is illustrated in Fig. 2.3. The lens
power is then given by
p =
1
f [in m]
[in Dioptres] (2.4)
In reasonable approximation the combination of cornea and eye lens can be de-
scribed as a thin converging lens with a power of 60 D - 70 D, depending on the lens
muscles being relaxed (unaccommodated) or tightened to focus on a near object
(accommodated). For given power p the thin lens formula relates an object to the
respective image as projected by the lens with
1
f
=
1
s
+
1
s

(2.5)
The eye and vision 17
where s and s

are the distance of the object and the image from the optical centre
of the lens as measured along its optical axis, respectively.
Exercise 6 The cornea has a power of about 50 Dioptres, while that of the eye
lens is about 10 Didoptres, when unaccommodated. Calculated the combined focal
length of cornea and unaccommodated eye lens. Is the result consistent with the
physical dimensions of the human eye?
A short-sighted person can see near objects clearly but distant objects appear
blurred, because either the curvature of the cornea or the lens is too large or the
distance between eye lens and retina is too large. The farthest point still in focus
is referred to as far point.
Equivalently a far-sighted person sees near objects blurred with the nearest point
in focus being called the near-point. It is usually caused by a attening of the
eye lens.
Exercise 7 (a) Suppose that a person is short-sighted with a far point at 0.2 m.
The power of accommodation of that person is 4 Dioptres. Calculate the power
of the spectacle lenses that are required to see distant objects in focus. What is
the shape of those lenses? (b) Suppose that a person is far-sighted with the near
point at 1.0 m. For correct vision the near point should be at 0.25 m from the eye.
Calculate the power of the spectacle lenses that are required to see an object at a
distant of 0.25 m in focus. What is the shape of those lenses? (Approximate the
distance between the optical centre of the eye lens and the retina with 0.02 m.)
Another common eye defect in astigmatism, which can be detected with the eye
test shown in Fig. 2.4 (top). Astigmatism occurs, when the focal length of the eye
is dierent, say, in the horizontal plane, than in the vertical plane. This is caused
by a distortion of the cornea. A person suering from astigmatism perceives the
lines at some angle and those at +180

blurred and greyish, while the lines at

the other angles are perceived black and in focus. The defect can be correct with
a cylindrical spectacle lens which thus de-focusses in one plane. The lens has to
be positioned, so that the de-focussing coincides with the plane dened by and
+ 180

.
Exercise 8 A person has astigmatism and wears glasses to correct this eye defect.
The person removes the glasses and holds them at some distance looking through
one of the lenses, while at the same time rotating the glasses. What happens to the
image seen through that lens?
2.2 Colour perception
Our colour perception is complex, but can be characterized employing three dif-
ferent qualities:
18
Figure 2.4: Eye test to detect astigmatism (top). Cylindrical lens correcting astigmatism
between the vertical and horizontal planes (bottom) [McCormick & Elliot 2001].
The eye and vision 19
Figure 2.5: The colour circle showing all hues. It incorporates all spectral colours and the
colour triangle [McCormick & Elliot 2001]. The extraspectral hues result from combining
spectral hues of low and high wave lengths. The limits of this are indicated by the solid and
dashed lines respectively. The colour triangle identies the three primary colours blue, green
and red.
Hue is what we colloquially call colour. It is comprised of all the light
colours associated with the electromagnetic spectrum, which can be identied
uniquely through their wavelength . In addition, it includes the extraspec-
tral hues of magenta, which result from mixing violet and red. The various
hues are compiled in the colour circle in Fig. 2.5.
Brightness is a qualitative measured of the light intensity. It is related to
the power reaching the retina per unit area.
Saturation is the purity of the colour. The hues shown in Fig. 2.5 are sat-
urated. When they are mixed with a neutral colour, such as white, black or
grey, they become less saturated.
The eye lens is opaque to wave length below 380 nm and thus limits our visibility
for light of low wavelength. The long-wavelength limit is set by the sensitivity of
the retina which is 760 nm. It is interesting to note that over this (narrow) range of
wavelengths atmospheric absorption is minimal so that the eye takes full advantage
of the naturally accessible part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Colour perception is made possible by the existence of three dierent types of
light-sensitive cells (cones) on the retina, which respond dierently to the three
primary hues of blue, green and red. In addition to the cones a second type of
receptor cells exists on the retina (rods) which are only sensitive to light intensity,
but not to colour. The colour sensitivity of the cones is due to three dierent
20
photosensitive pigments. Each one absorbs light over a range of wave lengths,
with peaks at 445 nm, 535 nm, and 575 nm, respectively. The absorption of light
produces a chemical change in the pigment molecule resulting in a nerve pulse,
which is transmitted to the brain for processing.
When all three types of cones receive light of similar intensity and colour cor-
responding to their characteristic hue (blue, green, red), the perception is that of
white light. The three combinations of two of the primary colours produce the
secondary colours:
green + blue = cyan
blue + red = magenta
red+ green = yellow
2.3 Exploring vision with simple experiments
It is instructive to explore the eye with some simple experiments:
Exercise 9 Yellow spot and blood vessels In front of an intense light source
look at a pin hole in a piece of paper at a distance of about 10 cm. What can you
see ?
Exercise 10 Blind spot Try located the blind spot in you eld-of-view. Estimate
this angle.
Exercise 11 Upward and downward rays on strong light sources When
looking at a strong light source, maybe a street light at night, it often appears that
light-rays extend downwards and/or upwards from it, but not to the either side.
Why?
Exercise 12 Curtains and Fechners law During the day, why do net curtains
obscure the view? Why does this change at night?
Chapter 3
Hearing
21
22
Figure 3.1: The sensitivity of the human ear as a function of sound frequency. The threshold
sensitivity (solid curve) is indicated. Dashed curves show the average threshold level, the
average sound level where discomfort, and that where pain was felt, for a group of test
persons, respectively. The right ordinate axis gives the sound intensity in units of Watt per
metre-squared on a logarithmic scale, while the left ordinate axis uses the specic units of
decibel.
Sound is a longitudinal pressure wave, which is received by our ears and trans-
formed into electrical signals, which can be processed by the brain. The ear thus
acts as a transducer.
3.1 Hearing sensitivity
Our sense of hearing is astonishing. This is evident from Fig. 3.1, which demon-
strates that the ear is sensitive over a frequency range of 20 20, 000 Hz, which
corresponds to a change by a factor of 1000 or, in musical terminology, is equivalent
to 8 octaves. For comparison, it may be noted that the frequency range visible by
our eyes spans only 1 octave, ranging from 4 9 10
14
Hz and is equivalent to a
change of little more than a factor 2. The large range of our hearing appears even
more remarkable, when remembering that musicians can tune their instruments to
better than 1 Hz.
Figure 3.1 also shows that the sensitivity of the ear covers a range of 12 orders of
magnitude. Sound intensity is power per area and is therefore measured in units of
Watt per metre-squared [W/m
2
]. Honouring Alexander Graham Bell, the quantity
intensity level has been introduced with the units decibel and bel (1 dB =
0.1 B). Intensity level is dened through
1 dB = 10 log (I/I
0
) (3.1)
where I
0
= 10
16
W/cm
2
, which is taken as the sensitivity threshold (compare
with Fig. 3.1). Some values for sound intensity and the corresponding intensity
level have been compiled in Table 3.1.
Hearing 23
power intensity level (dB)
threshold 1 nW 0
conversation 7 W 50
pain > 1000 W 130
Table 3.1: Typical values for sound intensity I and the corresponding intensity level in dB.
Figure 3.2: The relation of intensity level and loudness as a function of frequency.
Exercise 13 At the nearest houses the trac on a motorway produces noise with
an intensity of 10
6
W/m
2
. An expansion of the motorway with additional lanes
is expected to double the trac. Calculate the intensity level in dB before and after
the motorway expansion.
In the context of measuring and legislating environmental noise and its impact
on humans, the quoting of intensity levels is not satisfactory, since the perceived
loudness of a noise is frequency dependent and a subjective observation. Loud-
ness perception decreases for low and high frequencies. In an attempt to quantify
loudness the units 1 phon has been introduced. For the frequency 1000 Hz
1 phon = 1 dB. The loudness of a sound at a dierent frequency is determined by
comparing it with a sound at 1000 Hz until the loudness perception is the same.
In practice frequency-dependent weights are used to simplify the measurement of
loudness. The change of loudness in units of phon with frequency is illustrated
in Figure 3.2. Its astonishing sensitivity aside, it may also be noted that hearing
is a 360

, night-and-day sense and thus has been very useful in the evolution of
the human species. The question arises how the ear achieves such extraordinary
performance.
24
Figure 3.3: Cut-through view of the human ear.
3.2 Structure of the ear
Figure 3.3 shows a cut-through view of the human ear. The important parts of
the ear are the auricle (Pinna), the outer ear, the middle ear and the inner ear.
Besides this the brain plays a very important part in hearing by processing digital
information received from the inner ear.
The human auricle does not have any role in hearing and may be considered an
evolutionary relict
1
. However, cupping your hands behind the ears is equivalent to
a 6-8 dB directional gain of sensitivity.
The outer ear comprises mainly a 2.5 cm long tube, the ear canal. Its main
purpose is to transport the sound to the middle ear, which is thus located well
inside the body and protected. The length of the ear canal is optimized for the
best transport of sound waves with a frequency of 3300 Hz. This is the frequency
where human hearing is most sensitive.
The middle ear comprises the eardrum and the three ossicles, referred to as ham-
mer, anvil, and stirrup. The middle ear converts the sound waves into mechanical
vibration with an almost static gain of a factor x 20. Relaxing muscles in the
middle ear, this gain factor can be reduced to protect middle and inner ear from
brief excessive noise.
The mechanical vibrations are then passed on to the inner ear, which houses the
cochlea spiral, the complex hearing organ, which in many regards is still a mystery.
In the cochlea the analogue information contained in the mechanical vibrations of
the ossicles is dynamically amplied with large gain and digitized using tiny hair
bundles. The digital information is then converted into electrical pulses, which
are transported to the brain for processing by the auditory nerves.
The hearing process thus involves the following steps:
1
In some animals the auricle actually still aids the hearing sense.
Hearing 25
(faint) sound
longitudinal pressure wave
mechanical motion and amplication
dynamic amplication
digitization
electric pulses
brain processing and perception
The steps shown in italic are still poorly understood.
3.3 Outer ear and middle ear
The ear canal may be likened with a cylindrical pipe of 2.4 cm length, which is
open at one end and closed at the other by the 0.1 mm thin (paper thin) ear drum.
The fact that the ear canal transports sound best in the most sensitive frequency
region of the ear, and thus to some extend suppresses (background-)sounds at other
frequencies, can be explained with wave physics. For clarity the longitudinal sound
wave may be represented by a transversal wave, as it is shown in Fig. 3.4. For a
singly-closed tube it holds that
=
c
4
(3.2)
where is the sound frequency and c = 330 m/s is the velocity of sound in air.
It therefore follows, using the dimensions of the ear canal, that the resonance
frequency
r
of the ear canal, for which no destructive interference occurs, is given
by

r
=
330 m/s
4 2.5 10
2
m
= 3300 Hz (3.3)
The ear canal is thus tuned to sounds like the cracking of a twig or high-pitch
speech, such as that of an infant, which both must have had a particular importance
to the survival and evolution of the human species.
Figure 3.5 shows a cross-sectional view of the outer and middle ear illustrating
the arrangement of hammer, anvil and stirrup, which form a leaver system. A
schematic of this leaver system is displayed in Fig. 3.6. The physical motion of
the eardrum is extremely small. At the hearing threshold the eardrum moves only
about 1

A. This motion is passed on by the ossicles to another membrane, the
oval window. The leaver action of the ossicles passively amplies the mechanical
motion. The amplication factor of about x 15 can be derived using the fact that
the forces on both membranes are balanced and estimating the respective area of
eardrum and oval window, as it is shown in Fig. 3.6. The leaver arrangement itself
26
Figure 3.4: Illustration of the relation between tube length and resonance wave length
for an open and singly-closed tube, respectively. For clarity the longitudinal sound wave has
been represented as transversal.
Hearing 27
Figure 3.5: Cross-sectional view of outer and middle ear.
Figure 3.6: Transformation of air pressure changes into mechanical motion in the middle
ear. This gives a mechanical amplication of a factor of 15.
28
Figure 3.7: Illustration of the cochlea. (a) The spiral duct of the cochlea is divided by
the exible basilar membrane and is lled with a uid. The hair cells, which sit on the
membrane, connect directly to the auditory nerve. (b) When sound enters the cochlea (here
shown uncoiled) it agitates the uid, causing a ripple to travel along the basilar membrane.
This movement (which is grossly exaggerated here) is detected by sensory hair cells, supported
on the membrane.
adds another factor x 1.3 to the gain, so that the total amplication of the middle
ear amounts to a factor of

= 20. Muscle action can reduce briey to protect
the inner ear from excessive noise.
Another important part of the middle ear is the Eustachian tube which equili-
brates the pressure on either side of the eardrum. This is required, so that the
vibration of the eardrum is not hindered by pressure dierences. During a cold and
with sudden changes in external pressure (for example on board of an airplane) we
experience the eect of dierent pressures on either side of the eardrum. Our hear-
ing becomes less sensitive and distorted. Also physical pain may be experienced
due to the permanent strain on ear drum and oval window.
3.4 Inner ear
On the other side of the oval window is the cochlea. Many aspects of the cochlea
are still being researched, however, in general its functioning has been understood.
A schematic illustration of the cochlea is shown in Fig. 3.7. It is a long, conical (i.e.
the tube diameter decreases with length) tube which is coiled up towards the apex.
The tube contains a uid and it is separated into three chambers, referred to as
Hearing 29
Figure 3.8: A cross-sectional view of the cochlea tube.
tympanic chamber, cochlear duct, and vestibular chamber, as it is shown in Fig. 3.8.
Between the tympanic chamber and the cochlea duct is the basilar membrane. The
stiness of the basilar membrane is largest near the oval window and it becomes
more elastic towards the other end of the cochlea tube. This change in elasticity
is quite dramatic, covering two orders of magnitude.
The mechanical motion of the oval window is transferred to the cochlea uid.
The uid motion then causes ripples of the basilar membrane, as it is illustrated
in Fig. 3.7b. These ripples pass along the membrane and cease at a certain
distance from the oval window as a consequence of a complex interplay of uid
drag and the elasticity of the basilar membrane. Importantly, this distance is
correlated with the frequency of the original sound. Thus the received sound
frequency is converted to a stimulus along the basilar membrane with a well dened
length. This is equivalent to a digitization of the received frequency spectrum. In
principle this digital information can then be passed on to the brain for processing.
Ripples associated with high sound frequencies cease close to the oval window,
whereas those corresponding to low sound frequencies travel a long distance along
the basilar membrane.
Several question arise:
How is the mechanical signal, or rather the distance travelled by this signal
along the basilar membrane, converted into an electrical nerve pulse?
How can the extreme sensitivity of human hearing be achieved with such an
arrangement?
How well can neighbouring frequencies be distinguished?
30
Figure 3.9: The organ of corti.
It is clear from the outset that the outstanding performance of the human ear
cannot be achieved with a passive system, such as the leaver arrangement of the
ossicles in the middle ear. The interface between the basilar membrane and the
auditory nerve which connects to the brain is the organ of corti. An illustration is
shown in Fig. 3.9. The organ of corti consist of hair bundle cells which are located
above the basilar membrane and therefore move along with the ripples passing
along. Importantly, the hairs are not stationary but permanently in spontaneous
oscillatory motion. The frequencies of this spontaneous motion are random, how-
ever, very near to a certain eigenfrequency, which is characteristic for the cell
location. This allows for dynamic amplication. The external stimulus of the
ripple, when of correct frequency, aligns the spontaneous oscillatory motion of all
hairs at the characteristic eigenfrequency. Since the frequency of the hair motion
is already very near this eigenfrequency, not much energy is required to achieve
this. Thus a small stimulus achieves a large gain. This might explain the extreme
sensitivity of our hearing. The frequency spectrum (the Fourier transform) of the
hair oscillations, sharpens drastically, once the hairs go from the permanent near-
frequency motion to tuned motion, stimulated by the ripple. This is similar to the
non-linear behaviour of a so-called Hopf resonator. The non-linear response of a
hair bundle is illustrated in Fig. 3.10 for a hair bundle from a frog ear.
The displacement of the hairs by their motion opens ion channels, which for
example allows K
+
ions to move in, see Fig. 3.11. This creates a potential dierence
and results in an electric nerve pulse through the auditory nerve to the brain.
Hearing 31
Figure 3.10: (a) When a frog hair bundle is shaken using a micro-needle, its response is
characteristic of a noisy Hopf oscillator (top). The applied force (shown in addition for all
other spectra), which is related to the amplitude of the displacement of the needle, progres-
sively increases down the gure. When the bundle is shaken gently, the Hopf oscillators gain
- its response divided by the input stimulus - is large. (b) The Fourier transform of the bundle
displacement has a peak at the stimulus frequency. The height of this peak grows as the cube
root of the applied force. Thus a small stimulus force is amplied with larger gain than a
larger stimulus.
32
Figure 3.11: (a) Microscopic image of a hair bundle cell. The bundle in this hair cell from
a turtle is a pyramidal structure composed of stereocilia, which are connected by tip links.
(b) The coordinated motion of the hair bundle opens ion channels (the gates are indicated by
two red dots) and allows for the passage of K
+
ions.
Chapter 4
Alpha-decay
33
34
Alpha-decay 35
36
Alpha-decay 37
38
Alpha-decay 39
40
Alpha-decay 41
Exercise 14 Depleted uranium ( 99.8 %
238
U, 0.199 %
235
U, 0.001 %
234
U) is a
by-product of the enrichment process for reactor fuel and therefore relatively cheap.
It has the same chemical and materials properties as natural uranium ( 99.275 %
238
U, 0.720 %
235
U, 0.005 %
234
U). Uranium has 1.7 times the density of lead and
it is pyrophoric, i.e. ne uranium particles ignite in air, so that is well suited for
application in high-impact ammunition. It is also often used as ballast in aircraft.
The three long-lived uranium isotopes decay predominantly by alpha-decay.
(a) Decide, if an area contaminated with depleted uranium is more radioactive, i.e.
the overall activity is larger, than when it is contaminated with the same amount
of natural uranium. Justify your answer.
(b) Can you establish a trend relating the activity dN/dt and the mass number
A of the isotopic series of uranium nuclides, which decay by -decay? Is this a
general trend? Support your evidence for uranium with two other examples, i.e.
two other chemical elements.
(c) Inhaling of ne uranium dust can cause toxic reactions. However, how does the
radiological impact of uranium dust, i.e. the emission of energetic alpha particles
inside respiratory organs, compare with that of radium dust?
[The Table of Nuclides can be found at http://www2.bnl.gov/ton/. A Periodic
Table is available at http://pearl1.lanl.gov/periodic/default.htm.]
42
Chapter 5
Beta-decay
43
44
5.1 The story of a carbon atom
Radioactive -decay of
14
C nuclei forms the basis of the powerful technique of C-14
dating. In the story reprinted below [Levi 1975], Primo Levi beautifully narrates
how carbon atoms are constantly incorporated into plants as long as the plant is
alive, thus replenishing an equilibrium ratio of the stable
12
C and the radioactive
14
C carbon isotopes. The death of a plant then stops this process and starts the
C-14 clock.
Born in Turin in 1919, Primo Levi graduated in chemistry shortly before the Fascist
race laws prohibited Jews like himself from taking university degrees. In 1943 he
joined a partisan group in northern Italy, was arrested and deported to Auschwitz.
His expertise as a chemist saved him from the gas chambers, however. He was set
to work in a factory, and liberated in 1945.
His memoir The Periodic Table takes its title from the table of elements, arranged
according to their atomic mass, which was originally devised by Dmitri Mendeleyev
in 1869. Levi links each episode of his life to a certain element. But in the books
nal section, printed below, he sets himself to imagine the life of a carbon atom.
This was, he says, his rst literary dream, and came to him in Auschwitz.
Our character lies for hundreds of millions of years, bound to three atoms of
oxygen and one of calcium, in the form of limestone: it already has a very long
cosmic history behind it, but we shall ignore it. For it time does not exist, or
exists only in the form of sluggish variations in temperature, daily or seasonal, if,
for the good fortune of this tale, its position is not too far from the earths surface.
Its existence, whose monotony cannot be thought of without horror, is a pitiless
alternation of hots and colds, that is, of oscillations (always of equal frequency) a
trie more restricted and a trie more ample: an imprisonment, for this potentially
living personage, worthy of the Catholic Hell. To it, until this moment, the present
tense is suited, which is that of description, rather than the past tense, which is
that of narration - it is congealed in an eternal present, barely scratched by the
moderate quivers of thermal agitation.
But, precisely for the good fortune of the narrator, whose story could otherwise
have come to an end, the limestone rock ledge of which the atom forms a part lies
on the surface. It lies within reach of man and his pickax (all honor to the pickax
and its modern equivalents; they are still the most important intermediaries in the
millennial dialogue between the elements and man): at any moment - which I, the
narrator, decide out of pure caprice to be the year 1840 - a blow of the pickax
detached it and sent it on its way to the lime kiln, plunging it into the world
of things that change. It was roasted until it separated from the calcium, which
remained so to speak with its feet on the ground and went to meet a less brilliant
Beta-decay 45
destiny, which we shall not narrate. Still rmly clinging to two of its three former
oxygen companions, it issued from the chimney and took the path of the air. Its
story, which once was immobile, now turned tumultuous.
It was caught by the wind, ung down on the earth, lifted ten kilometers high.
It was breathed in by a falcon, descending into its precipitous lungs, but did not
penetrate its rich blood and was expelled. It dissolved three times in the water
of the sea, once in the water of a cascading torrent, and again was expelled. It
traveled with the wind, for eight years: now high, now low, on the sea and among
the clouds, over forests, deserts, and limitless expanses of ice; then it stumbled into
capture and the organic adventure.
Carbon, in fact, is a singular element: it is the only element that can bind itself
in long stable chains without a great expense of energy, and for life on earth (the
only one we know so far) precisely long chains are required. Therefore carbon is the
key element of living substance: but its promotion, its entry into the living world,
is not easy and must follow an obligatory, intricate path, which has been claried
(and not yet denitively) only in recent years. If the elaboration of carbon were
not a common daily occurrence, on the scale of billions of tons a week, wherever
the green of a leaf appears, it would by full right deserve to be called a miracle.
The atom we are speaking of, accompanied by its two satellites, which main-
tained it in a gaseous state, was therefore borne by the wind along a row of vines
in the year 1848. It had the good fortune to brush against a leaf, penetrate it,
and be nailed there by a ray of the sun. If my language here becomes imprecise
and allusive, it is not only because of my ignorance: this decisive event, this in-
stantaneous work a tre - of the carbon dioxide, the light, and the vegetal greenery
- has not yet been described in denitive terms, and perhaps it will not be for a
long time to come, so dierent is it from the other organic chemistry which is the
cumbersome, slow, and ponderous work of man: and yet this rened, minute, and
quick-witted chemistry was invented two or three billion years ago by our silent
sisters, the plants, which do not experiment and do not discuss, and whose temper-
ature is identical to that of the environment in which they live. If to comprehend is
the same as forming an image, we will never form an image of a happening whose
scale is a millionth of a millimeter, whose rhythm is a millionth of a second and
whose protagonists are in their essence invisible. Every verbal description must he
inadequate, and one will be as good as the next, so let us settle for the following
description.
Our atom of carbon enters the leaf, colliding with other innumerable (but here
useless) molecules of nitrogen and oxygen. It adheres to a large and complicated
molecule that activates it, and simultaneously receives the decisive message from
the sky, in the ashing form of a packet of solar light: in an instant, like an insect
caught by a spider, it is separated from its oxygen, combined with hydrogen and
(one thinks) phosphorus, and nally inserted in a chain, whether long or short does
46
not matter, but it is the chain of life. All this happens swiftly, in silence, at the
temperature and pressure of the atmosphere, and gratis: dear colleagues, when we
learn to do likewise we will be sicut Deus [like God], and we will have also solved
the problem of hunger in the world.
But there is more and worse, to our shame and that of our art. Carbon dioxide,
that is, the aerial form of the carbon of which we have up till now spoken: this
gas which constitutes the raw material of life, the permanent store upon which all
that grows draws, and the ultimate destiny of all esh, is not one of the principal
components of air but rather a ridiculous remnant, an impurity, thirty times less
abundant than argon, which nobody even notices. The air contains 0.03 percent;
if Italy was air, the only Italians t to build life would be, for example, the f-
teen thousand inhabitants of Milazzo in the province of Messina. This, on the
human scale, is ironic acrobatics, a jugglers trick, an incomprehensible display of
omnipotence-arrogance, since from this ever renewed impurity of the air we come,
we animals and we plants, and we the human species, with our four billion dis-
cordant opinions, our milleniums of history, our wars and shames, nobility and
pride. In any event, our very presence on the planet becomes laughable in geomet-
ric terms: if all of humanity, about 250 million tons, were distributed in a layer of
homogeneous thickness on all the emergent lands, the stature of man would not be
visible to the naked eye; the thickness one would obtain would be around sixteen
thousandths of a millimeter.
Now our atom is inserted: it is part of a structure, in an architectural sense; it
has become related and tied to ve companions so identical with it that only the
ction of the story permits me to distinguish them. It is a beautiful ring-shaped
structure, an almost regular hexagon, which however is subjected to complicated
exchanges and balances with the water in which it is dissolved; because by now it
is dissolved in water, indeed in the sap of the vine, and this, to remain dissolved,
is both the obligation and the privilege of all substances that are destined (I was
about to say wish) to change. And if then anyone really wanted to nd out why
a ring, and why a hexagon, and why soluble in water, well, he need not worry;
these are among the not many questions to which our doctrine can reply with a
persuasive discourse, accessible to everyone, but out of place here.
It has entered to form part of a molecule of glucose, just to speak plainly: a fate
that is neither sh, esh, nor fowl, which is intermediary, which prepares it for its
rst contact with the animal world but does not authorize it to take on a higher
responsibility: that of becoming part of a proteic edice. Hence it travels, at the
slow pace of vegetal juices, from the leaf through the pedicel and by the shoot to
the trunk, and from here descends to the almost ripe bunch of grapes. What then
follows is the province of the winemakers: we are only interested in pinpointing
the fact that it escaped (to our advantage, since we would not know how to put
it in words) the alcoholic fermentation, and reached the wine without changing its
Beta-decay 47
nature.
It is the destiny of wine to be drunk, and it is the destiny of glucose to be
oxidized. But it was not oxidized immediately: its drinker kept it in his liver for
more than a week, well curled up and tranquil, as a reserve aliment for a sudden
eort; an eort that he was forced to make the following Sunday, pursuing a bolting
horse. Farewell to the hexagonal structure: in the space of a few instants the skein
was unwound and became glucose again, and this was dragged by the bloodstream
all the way to a minute muscle ber in the thigh, and here brutally split into two
molecules of lactic acid, the grim harbinger of fatigue: only later, some minutes
after, the panting of the lungs was able to supply the oxygen necessary to quietly
oxidize the latter. So a new molecule of carbon dioxide returned to the atmosphere,
and a parcel of the energy that the sun had handed to the vine-shoot passed from
the state of chemical energy to that of mechanical energy, and thereafter settled
down in the slothful condition of heat, warming up imperceptibly the air moved
by the running and the blood of the runner. Such is life, although rarely is it
described in this manner: an inserting itself, a drawing o to its advantage, a
parasitizing of the downward course of energy, from its noble solar form to the
degraded one of low temperature heat. In this downward course, which leads to
equilibrium and thus death, life draws a bend and nests in it.
Our atom is again carbon dioxide, for which we apologize: this too is an obliga-
tory passage; one can imagine and invent others, but on earth thats the way it is.
Once again the wind, which this time travels far; sails over die Apennines and the
Adriatic, Greece, the Aegean, and Cyprus: we are over Lebanon, and the dance
is repeated. The atom we are concerned with is now trapped in a structure that
promises to last for a long time: it is the venerable trunk of a cedar, one of the last;
it is passed again through the stages we have already described, and the glucose
of which it is a part belongs, like the bead of a rosary, to a long chain of cellulose.
This is no longer the hallucinatory and geological xity of rock, this is no longer
millions of years, but we can easily speak of centuries because the cedar is a tree of
great longevity. It is our whim to abandon it for a year or ve hundred years: let
us say that after twenty years (we are in 1868) a wood worm has taken an interest
in it. It has dug its tunnel between the trunk and the bark, with the obstinate
and blind voracity of its race; as it drills it grows, and its tunnel grows with it.
There it has swallowed and provided a setting for the subject of this story; then it
has formed a pupa, and in the spring it has come out in the shape of an ugly gray
moth which is now drying in the sun, confused and dazzled by the splendor of the
day. Our atom is in one of the insects thousand eyes, contributing to the summary
and crude vision with which it orients itself in space. The insect is fecundated,
lays its eggs, and dies: the small cadaver lies in the undergrowth of the woods,
it is emptied of its uids, but the chitin carapace resists for a long time, almost
indestructible. The snow and sun return above it without injuring it: it is buried
48
by the dead leaves and the loam, it has become a slough, a thing, but the death
of atoms, unlike ours, is never irrevocable. Here are at work the omnipresent,
untiring, and invisible gravediggers of the undergrowth, the microorganisms of the
humus. The carapace, with its eyes by now blind, has slowly disintegrated and the
ex-drinker, ex-cedar, ex-wood worm has once again taken wing.
We will let it y three times around the world, until 1960, and in justication
of so long an interval in respect to the human measure we will point out that it
is, however, much shorter than the average: which, we understand, is two hundred
years. Every two hundred years, every atom of carbon that is not congealed in
materials by now stable (such as, precisely, limestone, or coal, or diamond, or
certain plastics) enters and reenters the cycle of life, through the narrow door
of photosynthesis. Do other doors exist? Yes, some syntheses created by man;
they are a title of nobility for man-the-maker, but until now their quantitative
importance is negligible. They are doors still much narrower than that of the
vegetable greenery; knowingly or not, man has not tried until now to compete with
nature on this terrain, that is, he has not striven to draw from the carbon dioxide
in the air the carbon that is necessary to nourish him, clothe him, warm him, and
for the hundred other more sophisticated needs of modern life. He has not done it
because he has not needed to: he has found, and is still nding (but for how many
more decades?) gigantic reserves of carbon already organicized or at least reduced.
Besides the vegetable and animal worlds, these reserves are constituted by deposits
of coal and petroleum: but these too are the inheritance of photosynthetic activity
carried out in distant epochs, so that one can well arm that photosynthesis is
not only the sole path by which carbon becomes living matter, but also the sole
path by which the suns energy becomes chemically usable.
It is possible to demonstrate that this completely arbitrary story is nevertheless
true. I could tell innumerable other stories, and they would all be true: all literally
true, in the nature of the transitions, in their order and data. The number of
atoms is so great that one could always be found whose story coincides with any
capriciously invented story. I could recount an endless number of stories about
carbon atoms that become colors or perfumes in owers; of others which, from
tiny algae to small crustaceans to sh, gradually return as carbon dioxide to the
waters of the sea, in a perpetual, frightening round-dance of life and death, in which
every devourer is immediately devoured, of others which instead attain a decorous
semi-eternity in the yellowed pages of some archival document, or the canvas of
a famous painter; or those to which fell the privilege of forming part of a grain
of pollen and left their fossil imprint in the rocks for our curiosity; of others still
that descended to become part of the mysterious shapemessengers of the human
seed, and participated in the subtle process of division, duplication, and fusion
from which each of us is born. Instead, I will tell just one more story, the most
secret, and I will tell it with the humility and restraint of him who knows from the
Beta-decay 49
Figure 5.1: Oetzi, the well preserved iceman and oldest known mummy, who was dated
with the radiocarbon technique using accelerator mass spectrometry to have died sometime
between 3360 - 3100 BC.
start that his theme is desperate, his means feeble, and the trade of clothing facts
in words is bound by its very nature to fail.
It is again among us, in a glass of milk. It is inserted in a very complex, long
chain, yet such that almost all of its links are acceptable to the human body. It is
swallowed; and since every living structure harbors a savage distrust toward every
contribution of any material of living origin, the chain is meticulously broken apart
and the fragments, one by one, are accepted or rejected. One, the one that concerns
us, crosses the intestinal threshold and enters the bloodstream: it migrates, knocks
at the door of a nerve cell, enters, and supplants the carbon which was part of it.
This cell belongs to a brain, and it is my brain, the brain of the me who is writing;
and the cell in question, and within it the atom in question, is in charge of my
writing, in a gigantic minuscule game which nobody has yet described. It is that
which at this instant, issuing out of a labyrinthine tangle of yeses and nos, makes
my hand run along a certain path on the paper, mark it with these volutes that
are signs: a double snap, up and down, between two levels of energy, guides this
hand of mine to impress on the paper this dot, here, this one.
5.2 Carbon-14 dating
The death of the icemen Oetzi, whose mummy is shown in Fig. 5.1, has been
dated to have occurred between 3360 3100 BC using radiocarbon dating based
on the isotope
14
C. Figure 5.2 is a picture of the mountain range in the Alps where
the mummy was found, right on the border between Austria and Italy, sparking a
dispute about the right to exhibit the remains.
The isotopic composition of atmospheric carbon is 99% stable
12
6
C, 1% stable
13
6
C
and only 1.2 10
10
% radioactive
14
6
C. The latter decays with a half-life of 5730 a,
however, it is constantly reproduced in the atmosphere and then incorporated into
living matter via photosynthesis due to the impact of cosmic rays on the earth
50
Figure 5.2: The ice covered mountain ridge between Italy and Austria where Oetzi was
found.
atmosphere, see Fig. 5.3. The balance of decay and reproduction accounts for the
stable concentration quoted. The death of an organism, however, terminates the
incorporation of new carbon atoms and the amount of C-14 isotopes thus gradually
decreases due to radioactive decays. The C-14 decay is a prominent example of
beta-decay. The daughter product is a
14
7
N nucleus which is the result of the
emission of a fast electron. The decay is thus referred to as a

-decay, in contrast
to a
+
-decay, where a positively charged positron is emitted. The positron is
otherwise similar to an electron, however, being an anti-particle it annihilates with
the nearest electron resulting in the emission of two 511 keV, back-to-back -rays.
Curiously the energy spectrum of -decay is a continuous distribution of electron
(or positron) energies, as it is shown in Fig. 5.4. This is in stark contrast to energy
spectra for -decay. A typical example is shown in Fig. 5.5. Four discrete lines
can be distinguished, which reect the states of the daughter nucleus (also shown
in the gure).
The question arises why the energy spectra of the emitted particle is funda-
mentally dierent for two seemingly similar processes. Wolfgang Pauli proposed
that a continuous energy spectrum can only be in agreement with the conservation
laws for energy and momentum, if the momentum and energy are not only shared
among two particles as in -decay, namely the -particle and the recoil parent
nucleus, but among three particles. He proposed that the third particle would be
neutral and without rest mass, and named it appropriately neutrino. Indeed, a
neutrino is being observed in
+
-decay, while an anti-neutrino is emitted in

-
decay. As electrons, neutrinos are leptonic particles. Combining a particle with an
anti-particle results in a lepton number 0, so that the conservation law of lepton
conservation is also fullled in both
+
- and in

-decay.
The complete decay equation is thus for
14
C:
14
6
C
14
7
N + e

+ + E (5.1)
An important example of
+
-decay is the decay of the radioisotope
18
9
F, which is
Beta-decay 51
Figure 5.3: The isotopic composition of carbon and the processes which lead to a stable C-
14 concentration in the atmosphere and through photosynthesis in all living plants. (1) GeV
protons and other highly energetic particles from cosmic rays produce (2) particle showers in
the atmosphere. (3) Neutrons from these showers undergo neutron/proton exchange reactions
with
14
N nuclei, thus forming radioactive
14
C. (4) As carbon dioxide the
14
C is (5) incorporated
into plants. (6) Following the death of the plant, photosynthesis and the incorporation of
14
C
stop, and the concentration of this isotope gradually decreases through radioactive

-decay.
52
Figure 5.4: Typical continuous energy spectrum for electrons from -decay.
Figure 5.5: Energy spectrum for -particles from the -decay of
241
Am.
Beta-decay 53
Figure 5.6: Schematic of a mass-spectrometer as envisaged by Wilhelm Wien and often
referred to as Wien-lter. The balance of forces can be used to express the mass-charge
ratio as a function of measurable quantities, as it is shown below.
often used in nuclear medicine. In this case the decay equation is:
18
9
F
18
8
O + e
+
+ + E (5.2)
In accelerator mass spectrometry and other mass-spectrometric techniques, iso-
topes with dierent masses are separated from each using combinations of electric
and magnetic elds. This is illustrated in Fig. 5.6
Exercise 15 In positron emission tomography (PET) bio-molecules, such as glu-
54
cose, labelled with -emitters are introduced into the body. The intake of the
molecules by dierent organs or tissues varies, so that physiological phenomena
can be imaged and studied. The positron from the -decay of the radionuclide an-
nihilates with a nearby electron and two 511 keV -photons are emitted in opposite
directions, so that the location of the labelled molecules can be detected.
(a) Write down the decay equations and the half-lives for the following radioiso-
topes used for PET imaging:
15
O,
13
N,
11
C, and
18
F.
(b) Why do these radionuclides have to be produced on-site using for example a
cyclotron facility in the hospital.
(c) Show that using a mass spectrometer the radioactive
15
O can be separated from
the stable
16
O. What magnetic eld is required to select 1 MeV
15
O 3
+
ions
with this mass spectrometer, when the electric eld E is perpendicular to the
magnetic eld B and has an electric eld strengths of E = 103 kV/m ?
Chapter 6
Gamma-decay
55
56
6.1 Nuclear medicine: history and modern practice
Gamma-photons are extensively used in nuclear medicine for diagnosis and therapy.
A typical radionuclide for such applications is
99
Tc which is well suited, since it
has a meta-stable, excited state which gamma-decays with a half-life of 6 hours.
Nuclear medicine using gamma-rays and other ionising radiation has a long
history. An account given by Perkins [Perkins 1995] is reproduced here:
During the rst half of the twentieth century radioactivity was used for a wide
variety of purposes. The main radionuclide was radium-226 which was available in
small quantities, being formed continuously by the decay of uranium-238 in pitch-
blende ore. Radium-226 has a half-life of 1600 years and decays by the emission of
alpha particles and gamma radiation (4.8 MeV alpha particles, 0.186-0.601 MeV
gamma rays). This was used as the activating agent in luminous watches, clock
faces and dials produced up to the early 1960s. In some cases the radiation doses
resulting from such items could be signicant, for example the skin dose directly
under the face of a pocket watch could be as high as 1.65 Gy. Radium was also
used for instrument panels in aeroplanes, scientic instruments and survey meters
many of which were in widespread use by the military. Nowadays many of these
items such as clocks and watches ore highly collectable items and are commonly
found by antique dealers at auctions and markets. Bung and polishing of such
items by dealers to polish brass ornamental instruments could result in contami-
nation of radioactivity to surrounding surfaces and objects. Today radioactivity
is still used for a number of industrial and domestic purposes. Radionuclides are
used for several industrial applications such as in industrial radiography and non-
destructive testing. Gamma ray sources are used for the sterilization of medical
instruments, thickness gauging, automated production control lines, and tracer ap-
plications. The main household items familiar to most people ore smoke detectors
which mostly contain Americium-241 (
241
Am).
The early medical use of radioactivity was mainly for treatment. The rst
recorded medical use of a radioactive substance took place around 1901 when
Danlos and Block placed radium in contact with a tuberculous skin lesion. The
long half-life of radium-226 (1600 years) provided on eectively constant rate of
gamma radiation which would penetrate deep into the body, This source of gamma
rays was more reliable than those which could be produced from the early x-ray
tubes. Radium also had the advantage that it could be introduced into the body
in tubes or needles so as to cause intense local irradiation of tumours with little
damage to the skin, this often being the limiting factor with the therapeutic ap-
plication of x-rays. The inability to provide uniform irradiation of tumours was
a particular problem, as was the necessity to perform a second operation to re-
move the implant at the end of the period of treatment. Later treatments were
carried out using the gas radon-222 which is a daughter product from radium-
Gamma-decay 57
226. The gas was lled into small metal seeds or tubes and then inserted into the
body. The short 3.85 day physical half-life of radon meant that the tubes could
be left in place permanently following the treatment period. The early successes
of radiation therapy led to an almost religious belief in the therapeutic properties
of radiation. Radioactivity became synonymous with good health and it became
fashionable to visit spa resorts in order to take the waters containing natural ra-
dioactivity. An early American radiologist was quoted as saying radioactive water
was a gift of God, curing practically all nervous disorders. Claims were made that
radioactivity was a cure for virtually all known ailments. The product description
of one preparation, Radiothor or perpetual sunshine, stated-that radiation was
a physical means of re-energizing weak and inactive cells with millions of rays. It
was a common belief of the time that deep radium therapy utilized the destructive
properties of rays whereas mild radium therapy was based on the stimulating prop-
erties of small doses. A large number of devices became commercially available to
produce home brews of radium water. Such cures were claimed to be valuable in
the treatment of anaemia, arteriosclerosis, arthritis, catarrh, diabetes, goitre, high
blood pressure, the menopause, menstrual disorders, nephritis, neuritis, nervous
conditions, obesity, prostatitis, rheumatism, senility, sexual conditions and skin
disorders. In some cases a number of bogus products were sold which claimed to
contain radioactivity but in fact contained common chemicals or samples of earth.
One such preparation which contained no radioactivity was named Hearium with
the intention of curing ear problems. In some cases the makers and distributors of
these fake remedies were prosecuted, ned and imprisoned because these remedies
did not contain radioactivity. A number of devices used for radium cures still turn
up from time to time, in some cases causing concern when the nature of the con-
tents are realized. For example a number of radium water siphons have been picked
up by antique dealers. Other unusual products include radioactive corsets for the
treatment of back ache and a more unusual example of a curative device was the
Q-ray electro-compress. Such a compress was bought by a school teacher at a jum-
ble sale in Manseld, Nottinghamshire UK, in 1986. This dry compress contained
natural uranium ore sewn into an electric blanket and was claimed to combine the
natural properties of radioactivity with heat. At the request of the local Police
this particular blanket was retrieved by the local Medical Physics Department at
Queens Medical Centre, Nottingham, for disposal and was found boxed complete
with manufacturers literature including medical testimonies and photographs of
the compress in use at St Thomass Hospital London.
The early beliefs in the therapeutic properties of radiation lacked any real sci-
entic basis. However as knowledge increased a number of dierent radionuclides
and radioactive compounds become available and the concept of targeting radi-
ation to sites of disease in the body gradually became a reality. It is also now
apparent that the utilization of natural and articial radionuclides has made an
58
unparalleled contribution to the understanding of human physiology and pathol-
ogy. In 1923 Hevesey introduced the use of radionuclides as biological tracers by
studying the absorption of radioactive lead in plants. He later used phosphate
32
P
as a tracer to study the metabolism of phosphorus in the rat. Modern diagnostic
nuclear medicine techniques are based on this concept. Unlike most other imag-
ing modalities which provide information concerning human anatomy or structure,
radionuclide counting and imaging techniques provide information on tissue and
organ function. Imaging techniques using a gamma camera are capable of mapping
out the biodistribution of an administered radiolabelled compound providing infor-
mation concerning organ and tissue and function. The early development of clinical
nuclear medicine in the 1940s was largely based on the use of radioisotopes of io-
dine. Iodine-130 was rst used for the investigation of patients with thyroid disor-
ders. Articially produced iodine- -131 subsequently became the main radionuclide
for the investigation and treatment of patients with thyroid disease. Iodine, with
an atomic number of 53, is the heaviest element required for human metabolism.
The body is unable to dierentiate between the radioactive and non-radioactive
isotopes and they are therefore metabolized in an identical manner. Substitution
of a radioisotope of iodine for a naturally occurring atom provides a means of mon-
itoring iodine distribution in the body and subsequently iodine metabolism in the
thyroid gland. Iodine is therefore unique in this respect. There are very few bio-
chemicals or drugs which contain an element suitable for isotopic substitution of a
gamma emitter suitable for gamma camera imaging. It is therefore necessary to in-
corporate the radionuclide chemically without altering the biological properties of
the material and ensuring that the compound remains stable after administration.
In nuclear medical diagnosis we are principally concerned with gamma rays for ex-
ternal imaging and detection within radiation sample counters although some beta
emitters are administered for diagnostic purposes. Some in vitro diagnostic pro-
cedures utilizing beta emitters are performed, and in particular there has recently
been an increase in the use of phosphorus-32 for autoradiographic studies such
as genetic mapping. In radiotherapy procedures the cell-killing properties of beta
emitters are used, for example using iodine-131 for the treatment of thyrotoxico-
sis, phosphorus-32 for the treatment of polycythaemia and strontium-89 for bone
pain palliation. Alpha particles are seldom used in medicine and are restricted
to a few research applications. In each clinical case the administered activity is
prescribed by the radiotherapist or oncologist and calculated by the medical physi-
cist or therapy radiographer. Patients who receive therapeutic amounts of activity
are admitted to specialized hospital suites and given special instructions for the
duration of the period of active treatment.
Gamma-decay 59
Figure 6.1: Single Photon Emission Tomography (left) and x-ray Computer Tomography
(right) cross-sectional images of the brain of a patient diagnosed with Ischaemic Stroke. The
reduction in blood ow in the left part of the brain is clearly visible with Single Photon
Emission Tomography, whereas x-ray Computer Tomography cannot give an unambiguous
diagnosis.
6.2 Gamma-rays in nuclear medicine
The strength of Single Photon Emission Tomography (SPET) may be appreciated
when compared to the well known Computer Tomography (CT). Figure 6.1 shows
as an example the tomography images obtained with
99m
Tc SPET and x-ray CT
for a patient diagnosed with Ischaemic Stroke, a condition where a blood clot
blocks the blood circulation in parts of the brain. It is obvious that SPET can
produce much more denite evidence of this condition than CT might do. While
the tomographic image processing is similar, the two techniques dier in several
ways.
1. In the case of SPET the source of the -photons is internal. This is achieved
by injecting a bio-molecule such as glucose, which has been labelled with a
radioisotope. CT employs an external source of x-rays.
2. While the energy of the -photon in SPET is well dened (for
99m
Tc it is
143 MeV), CT uses a broad energy spectrum of x-rays.
3. The labelled bio-molecule is selective and accumulates in certain tissue or
organ, so that even physiological processes can be studied in real time. In
contrast, CT produces a shadow-images of the body, relying on dierences
in x-ray absorption throughout the body. Since x-ray absorption generally
60
changes little, when organs malfunction, CT is not very sensitive to such
predicaments, while, for example, it is ideal for the identication of bone
fractures, because of the large dierence in x-ray absorption between bone
and tissue.
4. X-ray CT is less complex than SPET, since the need to produce very active
short-lived radioisotopes on-site and radiochemistry are not required.
A schematic illustration of the tomography procedure, as it is applied in the
case of SPET, is shown in Fig. 6.2. Figure 6.3 shows a picture of a typical SPET
facility.
In a hospital situation the
99m
43
Tc is obtained from a technetium generator (see
Fig. 6.4) containing
99
42
Mo, which decays via

-decay (t
1/2
= 66 h) to
99
43
Tc with
81% of the decays populating an excited, meta-stable state of this nuclide with an
excitation energy of 143 MeV. The 143 MeV -rays employed in SPET imaging
correspond to transitions from this excited state,
99m
43
Tc, to the long-living ground
state of
99
43
Tc. Since neither mass- nor atomic-number change, this nuclear transfor-
mation can only proceed via -decay, which releases energy as a single photon and,
to conserve momentum and energy, as the kinetic recoil energy of the technetium
nuclide.
6.3 The equivalence of energy and mass:
It is not immediately obvious, from where the -ray photons emitted by
99m
Tc
source their energy E

= 143 MeV. Figure 6.5 shows the energy dierence between

the mother nuclide
99
Mo and its daughter product
99
Tc including all intermediate
excited states of
99
Tc, which are also populated by the

-decay of
99
Mo. It is
apparent that
99
Tc is energetically favoured compared to
99
Mo. However, since
energy conservation has to be fullled, this energy dierence has to be accounted
for. It is a fundamental outcome of Albert Einsteins General Theory of Relativity,
that the energy dierence between
99
Mo and
99
Tc corresponds to a slight mass
dierence between these nuclides, and that energy is conserved, because of the
principle of the equivalence of energy E and mass m, famously expressed as
E = mc
2
(6.1)
which has general validity.
Equation 6.1 can be applied to express masses in terms of energy per light
velocity-squared, since 1 atomic-mass-unit (1 amu or 1 u) equals 931.5 MeV/c
2
.
In this form the masses of the unbound proton, neutron, and electron are given as
m
p
= 938.3 MeV/c
2
m
n
= 939.6 MeV/c
2
(6.2)
m
e
= 0.511 MeV/c
2
Gamma-decay 61
Figure 6.2: Principle of tomography as applied in SPET.
62
Figure 6.3: A SPET facility.
Exercise 16 (a) Calculate the mass-dierence of the nuclei
99
42
Mo and
99
43
Tc in
units of MeV/c
2
. (b) How do the masses of
99
42
Mo and
99
43
Tc compare with the
combined mass of 42 protons and 57 neutrons, and 43 protons and 56 neutrons,
respectively ? Express the dierence in units of MeV/c
2
. [According to the chart of
nuclides, http://www2.bnl.gov/ton/, the relevant atomic masses are m(
99
42
Mo) =
98.90772 amu and m(
99
43
Tc) = 98.90626 amu, respectively.]
Part (a) of the Exercise shows that
99
Tc is lighter than
99
Mo by m = 1.87 MeV/c
2
.
According to Einsteins principle of the equivalence of energy and mass this mass
dierence accounts for the rest mass of the particles emitted during the

-decay
of
99
Mo, an electron and an anti-neutrino, and the kinetic energies of these parti-
cles plus the total energy of all -photons emitted subsequently until the ground
state of
99
Tc has been attained. Since neutrinos do not have any rest mass, the
only mass removed is that of the

-electron. The rest is taken o in the form of

energy E, which can thus be calculated as
E = (1.87 MeV 0.511 MeV)

= 1.36 MeV (6.3)

The decay equation can be written, augmented by this energy dierence E, as
99
42
Mo
99
43
Tc + e

+ + E (6.4)
The energy dierence E = Q, which can be positive or negative, is commonly
referred to as the Q-value of a nuclear decay or a nuclear reaction.
The exercise illustrates that the electron mass and the kinetic energy carried by
the e

, the , and the recoiling nuclide has its origin in the mass dierence between
the two nuclei.
Gamma-decay 63
Figure 6.4: Cut-away view of a
99m
43
Tc generator box.
64
Figure 6.5: The energy dierences between
99
Mo and
99
Tc including all intermediate excited
states of
99
Tc (Level diagram).
Part (b) of the Exercise shows that the total mass of the sum of all nucleon
masses, i.e. the sum of all proton and neutron masses, is larger for both nuclides
than their actual mass. This dierence is referred to as the mass defect m. The
defective, or missing mass accounts for the nuclear binding energy B of the nu-
cleus. For
99
Mo it is B
Mo
= 853.4 MeV/c
2
and for
99
Tc it is B
Tc
= 855.3 MeV/c
2
.
It is apparent that the technetium nucleus is bound more strongly than the molyb-
denum nucleus with a dierence of 1.9 MeV in binding energy, which is in
agreement with the mass dierence calculated in part (a) of the exercise.
The fact that the binding energy of the technetium nuclide is larger is consistent
with the observation that
99
Mo decays to
99
Tc, thus attaining more stability. As
other physical systems, nuclei aim for minima of the potential energy.
Division by the nucleon number 99 shows that the binding energy per nucleon
B/A is for both examples of the order of 8 MeV per nucleon. This value holds
approximately for all isotopes with the exception of nuclei lighter than
16
O. A
graph illustrating B/A as the function of mass number A is shown in Fig. 6.6.
Exercise 17 Apply the principle of the equivalence of energy and mass.
1. Calculate the Q-values for the following decay processes and explain why some
of them are not observed: (a) -decay of
235
92
U (b) p-decay of
235
92
U
2. Calculate the Q-value for the
+
-decay of
18
9
F and determine the mass defects
of
18
9
F and
18
8
O.
Gamma-decay 65
Figure 6.6: An illustration of the change of B/A with mass number A. B/A peaks at
58
Fe.
Superimposed on the smooth function shown is a ne structure due to nuclear shell eects.
3. The -decay of
226
88
Ra to
222
86
Rn involves four discrete -lines. The most ener-
getic -particle has an energy approaching 4.785 MeV. Four discrete -lines
with energies of 0.601 MeV, 0.415 MeV, 0.186 MeV, and 0.262 MeV, respec-
tively, are observed in coincidence with the -decays or soon after. Draw a
level scheme.
6.4 Scintillation detectors
The observation of -rays in medical and other applications requires sophisticated
detection systems. An important example are scintillation detectors, which are
based on materials, such as sodium iodide, which scintillate, i.e. when they absorb
-radiation, they emit optical photons. The number of photons emitted is propor-
tional to the energy absorbed. Thus, when the photons are counted, the energy of
the original -ray can be determined. This can be achieved using the photocath-
ode of a photomultiplier by taking advantage of the photoelectric eect. Above
a certain energy, each emitted photo release an electron from the photocathode.
Thus the number of electrons released from the photocathode is proportional to
the number of emitted photons, and therefore also proportional to the energy of
the original -ray.
The number of electrons is too small that their combined charge could be mea-
sured directly. Their number is therefore multiplied using a sequence of dynodes
66
which are positively charged with increasing bias. Impact ionization results in
secondary electrons, which in turn multiply at the next dynode. Eventually a
measurable signal can be obtained.
While the detection eciency of scintillation detectors is excellent, their energy
resolution is much poorer than that of semiconductor detectors. This due to the
statistical nature of the scintillation process. However, in medical applications the
energy of the important -rays is usually well known, so that energy resolution is
not of importance, whereas image quality improves with the number of -photons
detected. Scintillation detectors are thus the system of choice for techniques such
as SPET or PET.
In order to achieve position-sensitivity and obtain two-dimensional images, a
large sodium iodide crystal is backed by an array of photomultiplier tubes. For
each -ray detected the sum of the responses from all photomultiplier tubes is
proportional to the energy of the -photon, while the tube with maximum response
indicates the location of its impact. For a specic energy observation over time
thus produces a two-dimensional image of the -ray activity inside a patient and
the distribution of a particular radioisotope, such as
99m
Tc, can be mapped.
Such system is known as gamma camera, or Anger camera, named after the de-
veloper Hal Anger. In order to ensure that gamma-rays are incident perpendicular
to the crystal surface and thus ensure a reliable correlation between the origin of
the -photon and the point of observation, the crystal is covered with a thick colli-
mator (typically lead, because of its large absorption coecient), which has up to
35,000 parallel holes. This ensures that stray -photons, which leave the patient
at angles much smaller or larger than 90

, are suppressed. A magnication eect

can be achieved by using a special collimator, where the orientation of the channels
associated with the holes is not parallel but such that they converge towards the
patient.
6.5 Summary
It may be summarized that nuclear transmutations such as - and -decay are
driven by increases in nuclear binding energy. The binding energy of a nucleus
is equal to its mass defect, which is a consequence of the equivalence of energy
and mass rst suggested by Einstein and well-established experimentally. Nuclear
transmutations do not necessarily lead directly to the ground state of a nuclide,
but can populate excited states with varying life-times. Such states decay to the
ground state via -decay and the emission of a -photon. An important example
for this process is the decay of
99m
Tc, which is used extensively in nuclear medicine,
in particular for Single Photon Emission Tomography.
Chapter 7
Appendix
67
68
7.1 First in-class test
In 20 minutes address the following questions. Calculators are permitted, however,
no written documents or books are allowed.
1. [4 marks] An exercise device is used to strengthen the leg muscles, see Fig. 7.1.
Calculate the force M exerted by the muscle in the upper leg, when moving
the foot forward to lift the weight. What is the reaction force exerted onto
the joint?
2. [4 marks] In about half-a-page comment on the material properties of our
bones. In what ways does bone out-perform other possible biological or syn-
thetic material choices for the human skeleton?
3. [4 marks] (a) Sketch the human eye, label your drawing and briey explain the
role of important parts. (b) Calculate the change in direction for a light-ray
incident on the cornea at an angle of 25

with respect to the surface normal

(refractive indices: n
air
1, n
cornea
1.37).
4. [3 marks] At the nearest houses the trac on a motorway produces noise with
an intensity of 10
6
W/m
2
. An expansion of the motorway with additional
lanes is expected to double the trac. Calculate the intensity level in dB
before and after the motorway expansion (Intensity level is dened through
1 dB = 10 log (I/I
0
), where I
0
= 10
16
W/cm
2
).
Figure 7.1: Mechanical representation of an exercise to strengthen the leg muscles [Mc-
Cormick & Elliot 2001].
Appendix 69
Exercise 1
70
Exercise 2
Appendix 71
Exercise 3
72
Appendix 73
Exercise 4
74
Exercise 7
Appendix 75
Exercise 9 Yellow spot and blood vessels When looking at a pin hole hole in
a piece of paper at a distance of about 10 cm in front of an intense light source, the
blood vessels of the retina are visible as an intricate black network. In the centre
of the image a (black) spot can be seen, which is the yellow spot. The yellow spot
is an area of the retina, about 1 mm in diameter, right on the optical axis, where
the eye is most sensitive.
Exercise 10 Blind spot At the point where the optic nerve passes through the
retina, it is not sensitive. The blind spot can be identied by concentrated looking
at a certain object with one eye closed. For the left eye the blind spot is about 15

to the left and for the right eye it is about 15

to the right of the nose, respectively.

Any objects located at those angles disappear from view.
Exercise 11 Upward and downward rays on strong light sources When
looking at a strong light source (maybe a street light at night) it often appears that
light-rays extend downwards and/or upwards from it, but not to the either side.
The reason for this phenomenon is the diraction of incident light in the meniscus
of the tear liquid just underneath the upper eyelid (perception of upward rays) and
just above the lower eye lid (perception of downward rays).
Exercise 12 Why do curtains obscure the view one way, but not the
other? Eye and brain can distinguish objects, when their brightness ratio is above
about 5% (Fechners law). When a curtain, during the day, is in bright sunshine
all objects behind it reect light with much lower absolute intensity, so that the
relative dierences are less than 5% on the scale dened by the bright curtain. At
night, with light sources inside the room, the situation is somewhat reversed.
Exercise 13
76
Exercise 14
Appendix 77
78
Appendix 79
Exercise 15
80
Appendix 81
Exercise 16
82
Appendix 83
Exercise 17
84
References
[Halliday et al. 1993] David Halliday, Robert Resnick, Jearl Walker, Funda-
mentals of Physics, John Wiley & Sons, USA, ISBN
0-471-57578-x (1993)
[Levi 1975] Primo Levi, excerpt from The Periodic Table, in The
Faber Book of Science, ed. John Carey, Faber & Faber
Ltd, London, ISBN 0-571-16352-1, (1995) 338 - 344
[McCormick & Elliot 2001] Andrew McCormick and Alexander Elliot, Health
Physics, Cambridge University Press, UK, ISBN 0-
521-78726-2 (2001)
[Perkins 1995] A.C. Perkins, Nuclear Medicine: Science and Safety
(1995)
85