Warning: This post is somewhat technical, kind of lengthy, and it has an example of early recycling near the end.
A former professor of mine recently called with some technical questions about the Conservation
Department’s new x-ray equipment. Instead of responding to him via e-mail I thought I would provide a kind of open response here. And why not, right? It just might be interesting to you and perhaps also to my colleagues in the conservation world. Besides, in my mind, the IMA’s blog seems to be the perfect place to discuss x-radiography considering the previous non sequiturs of Cheesecake and Redbuds.
I’m a little worried, though, because I doubt many of the folks upstairs realize that we have the capacity to produced x-rays down here in the basement and this might make them a bit nervous. I think it’s fair to say that most people have a fear of x-rays for good reason, because they have the potential to change humans on the atomic level, and that’s unnatural at best; but, trust me, we’ve taken a lot of safety precautions to make sure that all of the x-rays that we produce stay in the room that they are produced in. The room is an enclosed space that is lined all the way around with an 1/8 of an inch of lead. We use a Geiger counter to confirm that this room is successfully containing the energy.
Filed under: Conservation
