Gamma Spectrometry Forum

Greetings! My name is Matthew I am originally from the Newcastle in the North of England. I studied physics at University of Edinburgh, a city I lived in and loved for 20 odd years. I had my first encounter with a gamma ray spectrometer there. It was not long after Chernobyl so earth sampled from nearby hilly regions had some interesting signals. Sadly I am not a physicist but only a mere developer - over the years mostly java and some XSLT.

I have had a little pocket Geiger counter for some years now and out of curiosity taken it every where I’ve ever visited. Always surprised at how hot it is at 40,000ft and how little background radioactivity there is in London and the south east. Finally I decided to get serious and get a nice big 2in CsI tube and so far it's been giving me much pleasure. Though putting together my 110kgs of lead shielding from roofing lead has had taught me I’m not as fit as I like to imagine.

As well as in interest in Physics I also like to read about early modern European History and Philosophy - I started out with Karl Popper and the Philosophy of Science and Epistemology and ended up with a big passion for German Idealism in particular Hegel. Something my workmates who are into Dawkins and British Empiricism don’t understand but we do have the most obscure fights over our Friday lunchtime pints.

Anyway I look forward to asking you all a lot of stupid questions so please I beg you patients.

Cheers Matthew

Hello Matthew,

Welcome to the forum and sorry I had to approve your post first, we have had some problems with spammers, so now I approve the first three posts by new members.

Reading from your introduction I am sure you will fine likeminded people here, at least on the side of radiation detection. I must admit I have not read a lot of philosophy, in particular not Hegel, but shall put it on my reading list ;)

Steven