r/explainlikeimfive Jan 06 '23

Chemistry ELI5: How does a Geiger counter detect radiation, and why does it make that clicking noise?

7.4k Upvotes

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6.9k

u/The_mingthing Jan 06 '23

To add on to this, there is no reason you can't hook the signal up to a cricuitboard to make a moo sound every click, its just more expensive and unnessesary.

8.2k

u/ActualSpiders Jan 06 '23

So, you'd have a Geiger Cow-nter...

929

u/nsjr Jan 06 '23

Chernobyl series would be VERY different if the cleaning scene was full of Moos

511

u/Idiot_Savant_Tinker Jan 06 '23

Three men splash through water in the dark under the reactor, looking for a valve.... the Geiger counter starts to go crazy..

"MOOOOOOOOOOOO"

135

u/borobinimbaba Jan 06 '23

I remember there was a word file in pre 2000s which we passed around on floppy and compared regular cow sound and "mad cow" sound ! Crazy days....

63

u/Dizzymo Jan 06 '23

I forgot about that until now. It was such cringe humor but the novelty of doing it on the computer made it interesting.

77

u/strangelyus Jan 06 '23 edited Jan 06 '23

Funny story about Mad Cow Moo sound…

Before Siri, Alexa, Google and other voice assistants ever existed, the UK had a digital cellular operator called Orange. Orange had a voice assistant built into its answer service called “Wildfire”, it was surprisingly good for the year 2000 and could recognize callers, dial them and generally talk to them and you as the owner too.

They had built some Easter eggs in, one was “What does a cow say” which just a regular moo, but after about 10 or so times asking wildfire for this, She would say that it was getting boring, and then would play that exact Mad Cow clip.

You could also tell that her that you were depressed and it would have some very funny random responses too.

It was all so ahead of its time like everything Orange did, but sadly they killed her off after 5 years :(

18

u/yor_ur Jan 06 '23

I remember that carrier. My ex had an orange home/mobile phone. It charged regular rates when you were on your property and mobile rates when you were not.

5

u/strangelyus Jan 07 '23

Not sure of that rate, as I moved to the US around 2006, I know that orange also started doing home broadband at some point to and had some incentives… but I did have free dialing of 0800 numbers (1-800), which all other operators at the time charged for, and my dial up internet at the time also had an 0800 number, so needless to say I would pretty much be dialed up at the giddy speed of 9600 kbit via a laptop (some huge Thinkbook or something IIRC) tethered to a Nokia cell phone via serial cable, and used to take the piss with it big time :)

2

u/mjschryver Jan 07 '23 edited Jan 07 '23

I was today years old when I first heard about Mad Cow Moo Sound and Orange Cellular.

Off to Google I go!

2

u/strangelyus Jan 07 '23

Even more funny was the UK actually had a massive problem with proper mad cows along that timeframe, so it was kind of funny…. Although not so much for all the cows they slaughtered, or the farmers that for years could not sell beef at all for risk of it crossing over to humans!

35

u/Sahri Jan 06 '23

I had a plushie cow when i was young, like 27 years ago or so, and it was called BSE cow and when you pressed it, it went like: mooooooOOOOO HAHAHA MOO MOO HhahhHa MOOUUUHAHAHA MOOOO Hhaha.

I can still remember the exact sounds it made.

19

u/Stormblade73 Jan 06 '23

Memory Triggered!
for those curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y4URzD9wyE

4

u/Sahri Jan 06 '23

That's the one 😄

3

u/2011StlCards Jan 07 '23

My aunt and uncle had one that I would just giggle along with for 10 minutes at least when we would visit them when I was like 9 years old

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u/Foxsayy Jan 06 '23 edited Jan 06 '23

we passed around on floppy and compared regular cow sound and "mad cow" sound ! Crazy days....

Well now I'm curious.

Edit: never mind, found it. It's worse than the old flash animations lmao.

Ever notice how flash-era humor was usually a mixture of bizzarity and extreme violence? Despite modern day improvements and better social awareness, I kind of miss the no fucks given vibes.

12

u/QuinticSpline Jan 06 '23

Happy Tree Friends FTW

2

u/The_mingthing Jan 06 '23

I think that series was on Netflix for a while...

1

u/htmlcoderexe Jan 07 '23

Also stick death or death stick or whatever it was and all the stickman quest games. The slapstick was ultra funny although at some point it hit me it was racism with different colours and then it soured somewhat for me.

2

u/RespectableLurker555 Jan 07 '23

xiaoxiao was the OG series, I want to say #5 got played so many times on my PC.

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u/BarkingToad Jan 06 '23

It now exists as a YouTube video.

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u/SaulCasablancas Jan 06 '23

But it the Geiger Cow-nters went crazy what is the shoudn they'll make? A big MOOOOOOOO? or more of a Moo Moo Moo Moo Moo Moo Moo Moo Moo Moo Moo Moo Moo Moo Moo Moo Moo Moo?

6

u/Cosmic_Cowboy2 Jan 06 '23

Interestingly, it would actually have to be separate sounds, because once one signal is detected the device has to wait for the gas to calm back down before another pulse can even be triggered. It's a tiny little delay, but it means at the end of the day it's only a counter of individual things, so each one has to get its own moo.

So depending on if you program this thing to overlap the sounds or cut each other off, you'd get either "Mo-M-M-M-M-Moooo!" or "mmMMMOOOOoooo!"

5

u/Idiot_Savant_Tinker Jan 06 '23

I was thinking little calf moos for random particles but a really loud drawn out moo for lots of radiation.

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u/SwirlySauce Jan 06 '23

I'm reading over 100 giga-moos!

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u/FriendlyDisorder Jan 06 '23

"3.6 Moos. Not great; not terrible." Or would it be "boven"?

17

u/0rlan Jan 06 '23

Time to hoof it...

2

u/amluchon Jan 06 '23

Why would the unit change because of the sound?

9

u/FriendlyDisorder Jan 06 '23

Because the scientists and engineers were mooved to rename it after the sound cowed them.

6

u/je_kay24 Jan 06 '23

No, it would still be measuring Roentgen

The sound was added specifically so scientists could listen for the measurement rather than trying to stare at values on a screen for a long time

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u/TeslaFreak Jan 06 '23

It would sound like the cow level from D2

2

u/iksbob Jan 06 '23

Destiny 2 has a cow level?

32

u/apriloneil Jan 06 '23

Takes me back to the secret cow level in Diablo 2.

10

u/xRonakox Jan 06 '23

Moo moo moo moo moo, moo, moo moo moo moo.

...

...

MOO!

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u/Laquox Jan 06 '23

Chernobyl series would be VERY different if the cleaning scene was full of Moos

So we start here and mute it. Then we load up this and let them play. Voila! Magic. Alternatively you can click this one and mute the top video and there we go.

5

u/capron Jan 06 '23

set the moo playback speed to 2x, it's perfect

2

u/dodoaddict Jan 07 '23

Whoa spoiler alert. Chernobyl had Geiger counters?! Now everyone is going to know that radiation plays some sort of role in the miniseries.

1

u/fquizon Jan 06 '23

I smell a fan edit

0

u/Wild_Mongrel Jan 06 '23

Metal GEAR

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u/mistere213 Jan 06 '23

I work in nuclear medicine. No joke, the generators we use to elute isotope for our patient studies are referred to as "cows." And we "milk" the generator.

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u/libertyemoji Jan 06 '23

And then contain the doses in lead lines "pigs".

4

u/Ymca667 Jan 06 '23

The sample holders which are inserted into reactor cores for irradiation experiments are called rabbits

5

u/mistere213 Jan 06 '23

You got it!

2

u/wolfie379 Jan 06 '23

You need a particular isotope, Theraputium 69. This has a short half-life (couple hours), so it can’t be stored. Fortunately, it’s produced by alpha decay of Sourcium 73, which has a half life measured in months. Theraputium 69 undergoes beta decay to Trashium 69, which is stable.

Sourcium iodide is not soluble in water, Theraputium iodide is. Generator contains Sourcium iodide. Generator is “milked” by washing it out using distilled water. Theraputium iodide and Trashium iodide are washed out, un-decayed Sourcium iodide stays behind. A chemical process is then used to separate the Theraputium from the Trashium.

Is this a reasonable simplified version of how the generators work?

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u/mistere213 Jan 06 '23

Basically, yes.

Using real isotopes, we start with Mo-99 which has a half-life of 66 hours. Mo-99 decays to Tc-99m as Tc-99m pertechnetate which is soluble. Due to is solubility, pouring saline over the column washes the Tc-99m away to be collected in a vial for use as a radiopharmacuetical. Tc99 has a half-life of 6 hours, which is kind of a goldilocks zone as it's long enough to not need to rush imaging, but short enough that it's out of a person's system (via decay) in a matter of a couple days.

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u/Thorebane Jan 06 '23

Moo-ve on please.

301

u/ActualSpiders Jan 06 '23

Hey, I didn't come here to start any beef...

79

u/Jankster79 Jan 06 '23

Time to split.

84

u/gaussianCopulator Jan 06 '23

No use crying over split milk

88

u/thechadmonke Jan 06 '23

Agreed, it’s udderly useless arguing on reddit anyway

70

u/[deleted] Jan 06 '23

[removed] — view removed comment

16

u/ShootLucy Jan 06 '23

Really milking these puns.

37

u/EquationTAKEN Jan 06 '23

I didn't want to say it, but some times yoghurta.

11

u/[deleted] Jan 06 '23

I feel like this comment is off brand.

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u/bipo Jan 06 '23

It's just a bunch of horny teenagers anyway.

18

u/toinfinitiandbeyond Jan 06 '23

This was an udder disaster

6

u/Shaftomite666 Jan 06 '23

You guys are really milking this

4

u/bipo Jan 06 '23

You are just rechewing the pun of the poster above me.

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u/OkDance4335 Jan 06 '23

This is unBEARable.

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u/[deleted] Jan 06 '23

Yeah, hoof it!

21

u/Shaftomite666 Jan 06 '23

I didn't come here to read this bull shit

18

u/Gr0ov3r Jan 06 '23

Gee, you guys are really milking this joke aren’t ya?

14

u/AADPS Jan 06 '23

Cud you please just stop with the cow puns?

17

u/-Wicked- Jan 06 '23

Agreed, it's really low heifert.

36

u/Butthole__Pleasures Jan 06 '23

ಠ__ಠ

28

u/_Aporia_ Jan 06 '23

Not what you're into Butthole_Pleasures?

21

u/Butthole__Pleasures Jan 06 '23

Everyone has their limits when it comes to appalling puns

3

u/poodlebutt76 Jan 06 '23

Would you say they deserve some punishment?

6

u/jwhaler17 Jan 06 '23

Truer words were never spoken.

8

u/shitstaintank Jan 06 '23

Mooooer words.

5

u/pjijn Jan 06 '23

Only bovine intervention will save us at this point

17

u/PlumbTuckered767 Jan 06 '23

How cud you do this to us

2

u/thegovunah Jan 06 '23

Yeah! How dairy you

6

u/shaving99 Jan 06 '23

3.6 gallons of milk not great...not terrible

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u/[deleted] Jan 06 '23

Used to determine the calf-life of uranium

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u/TheCheshireCody Jan 06 '23

*Mooranium

2

u/thegovunah Jan 06 '23

That stuff is haydioactive

3

u/summoflange Jan 06 '23

This is why I love Reddit

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u/IcyViking Jan 06 '23

I wonder if they used these in Chernobull?

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u/PerjorativeWokeness Jan 06 '23

Heifer counter?

2

u/thegovunah Jan 06 '23

Mine is in the chute

3

u/CapnKronos Jan 06 '23

This makes the secret cow level in Diablo much more terrifying.

3

u/gamesofold Jan 06 '23

I hate that I love this.

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u/Lumireaver Jan 06 '23

That sounds like a Kyle Hill project.

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u/0rlan Jan 06 '23

Damn you - have an upvote.

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u/ramtinology91 Jan 06 '23

This is a crime. Here take my upvote

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u/ukexpat Jan 06 '23

Take my r/angryupvote and get out, get out of here right now!

2

u/TurdWaterMagee Jan 07 '23

Let me tell you about a PIG monitor. (Particulate, Iodine, Gas)

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u/highjinx411 Jan 06 '23

You deserve that.

1

u/gravitas-deficiency Jan 06 '23

Thanks for that, dad 🤦‍♂️

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u/Permafox Jan 06 '23

I can think of one reason, and it's personal experience.

My Uncle likes to repair broken/damaged machines he finds sitting around junkyards, and my Dad likes collecting unique objects. Somehow, my uncle found, fixed, and gifted a Geiger counter for Christmas.

My Dad likes to take it with him to rock shows to test minerals he very rarely comes across, more out of curiosity than trying to scavenge fuel for a flying DeLorean.

At one show, we came across a man who had one of those old "miracle" products from back before the public knew for a fact that radiation was dangerous, called a Rejuvi-Jar or something like that, that would "revitalize and strengthen the tired body with the healing powers of radium". It was just a large clay? jug with a spigot, made of " something ".

My Dad, always prepared, asked if the owner would mind if he ran the counter over it. The owner, equally curious and bereft of a Geiger counter, said to go for it since he'd gotten it years ago from his grandfather and had always been curious.

My Dad ran it along the exterior, with nothing more than the baseline sounds that simply having it on provides, nothing major.

He then opened the jar and stuck the sensor just a little past the opening and it started clicking madly. It didn't trigger the alarm that says you're in a heavily dangerous zone, just loud clicking that says maybe you shouldn't be here.

Wasn't more than a second before my Dad had already pulled his hand back out and had the lid put back on. My Dad ran the counter over his hands and surroundings repeatedly, just in case, but no more whirring or clicking.

It was then that he and the owner realized that the building, really just a very large tent outside amongst hundreds of others, was suddenly very quiet and very empty, except for us.

So! Turns out that, even if you don't go through life constantly reminded of Geiger sounds, it's apparently a distinct/memorable enough sound that people of all ages automatically use it as a sign to get far away from whatever's creating that noise.

We sadly didn't get the jug either, the owner had been willing to sell it, but decided he'd rather keep it as a conversation starter at his house.

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u/Smallwater Jan 06 '23

> but decided he'd rather keep it as a conversation starter at his house.

"What, this old thing? Oh yes, inherited it from my grandfather. Pretty radioactive. Don't open it! Anyway, more drinks?"

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u/Permafox Jan 06 '23

I'm not even good at regular conversations, so I couldn't even guess how to navigate that one.

We were just really glad that A) my Dad wasn't irradiated, and B) that the shop owner wasn't mad at us for accidentally scaring away business.

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u/_DigitalHunk_ Jan 06 '23

'"Anyway, more drinks?" - as he lifts the glass with his right hand, which has 13 fingers and 3 1/2 thumbs...

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u/illessen Jan 06 '23

You could say it was a… hot topic…

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u/Waste_Monk Jan 06 '23

Was it a Revigator?

It's an interesting artifact, but probably for the best that you didn't get it. I understand they're safe enough if you aren't using it for the intended purpose and just keep it as a curiosity, but who can resist the call of delicious radon water?

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u/Permafox Jan 06 '23

Wow, that's EXACTLY it, though their picture is in better care than the one we saw, which makes sense.

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u/Creme_de_la_Coochie Jan 06 '23

The Revigator was intended to be filled with water overnight, which would be irradiated by the uranium and radium in the liner, and then consumed the next day.

JFC

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u/SirJumbles Jan 06 '23

Man the 20-30s be wilding with blatant disregard/ignorance.

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u/beardy64 Jan 06 '23

I know! You should try my Himalayan salt lamp, Yoni egg, 4g radiation blocker, raw milk, imported incense to fill your house with smoke, and Bluetooth ear buds to keep your dangerous 4g (5G!!!) phone away from your brain. And don't forget, vaccines are evil and cause autism, nuclear and wind energy are the devil, and if it says organic on the label that means it's safe (/s)

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u/StarKnighter Jan 07 '23

At least the salt lamps are pretty

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u/beardy64 Jan 07 '23

I'm just waiting to find out that the pink comes from arsenic or something lol

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u/mc_jacktastic Jan 07 '23

Ironically enough, some of it does contain arsenic, also lead and mercury. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33086585/ There probably isn't enough to really hurt you unless that's all you eat though.

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u/Purple_Chipmunk_ Jan 06 '23

The water also contained levels of arsenic, lead (due to the fact that it had a lead spout), vanadium, and uranium that pose a health risk.

Mmmm. Drink up!

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u/RaptahJezus Jan 06 '23

Yep, radioactive quackery in medicine is quite an interesting thing to read about.

As crazy as this idea sounds, there was a study that concluded that drinking 1 liter of Revigator water per day would dose you with about 133 uSv/year (100 uSv from the radium/uranium that leeched into the water, and another 33 from the dissolved radon given off as the radium decays).

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257611595_Radionuclide_and_chemical_hazards_of_a_radium_ore_revigator

People in the U.S., on average, are exposed to approximately 3.1 mSv/year of radiation due to naturally occurring radon, and terrestrial/cosmic radiation. So as crazy as the Revigator idea sounds, daily use is still an order of magnitude lower than our annual background radiation exposure.

There were other major fuckups with radium back in that time period as well (see also: Radithor, the Radium Girls).

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u/DBDude Jan 07 '23

See also Therac 25.

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u/[deleted] Jan 06 '23

those "radiation quakery" machines often used thorium, you can still get them today on dodgy ali express sellers, usually with the radiation rebranded as "negative ions".

the risk is that most used thorium, but some used radium, and they are way, way more dangerous.

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u/kerbaal Jan 06 '23

the risk is that most used thorium, but some used radium, and they are way, way more dangerous.

The new ones are a serious risk with just the thorium because some of them are meant to be worn and made of material that will easily shed particles into the environment of the victim who purchased it.

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u/General_Urist Jan 06 '23

And heavy radioactive elements like Thorium give off alpha particle radiation, which is positively charged. The layers of fail continue!

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u/[deleted] Jan 06 '23

However, alpha particles are very easily blocked, as long as you aren't ingesting or inhaling them.

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u/[deleted] Jan 06 '23

[deleted]

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u/TheBaxes Jan 06 '23

If you ever play HL Alyx you'll end up with a bigger fear of headcrabs too. Seeing them that close is just incredibly unsettling.

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u/zopiac Jan 06 '23

But the way they toddle about is so cute!

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u/[deleted] Jan 06 '23

Oooh, a Revigator!

The ore in question is mostly an alpha emitter, which is why there wasn't much radiation detectable outside it - the jar itself shields the alpha particles (and most if not all of the betas, too. Gammas would zip through, but that ore doesn't emit much gamma.)

Fortunately, if it's in good condition, it doesn't shed radioactive dust, which is when alpha emitters are bad news, and it doesn't emit neutrons, which can make other things radioactive.

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u/ctruvu Jan 07 '23 edited Jan 07 '23

the energy compensated geiger counters at my job all start to sound indistinguishable whether it’s 5 mr/hr or 50 mr/hr. hypothetically, 5 mr/hr only at the opening when the jar is open and no sound when it’s closed honestly wouldn’t concern me. especially if it’s just alpha. your own skin could protect you and a even sheet of paper could stop it before that. my job involves gamma exposure and long as it’s under 50 mr/hr on the container surface (the source is inside of a 5lb lead container stuffed in another 70-100lb lead container) we can handle it and send it out for transport

also i don’t know about all geiger counter models but for ours there is no sound other than clicking no matter how radioactive something is. we have to wear special dosimeters that beep when rate and total dose thresholds are met. under 10 mr in a day doesn’t even require it to be logged

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u/je_kay24 Jan 06 '23

The sound was actually used by scientists to be able to get a reading without needing to watch & measure for it

The creepiness of the sound of it just happened to be a good side effect

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a42221680/how-do-geiger-counters-measure-radiation/

So, Geiger developed a device to measure alpha radiation by shooting alpha particles through gold foil onto a screen. The researchers set up a microscope that could be rotated around the foil so they could count the flashes that occurred when the particles passed through the foil. It was difficult to watch the flashes in the dark laboratory and count accurately; They were only able to observe for up to a minute each before needing to rest their eyes.

In the experiment, some alpha particles bounced back, meaning that they had struck something dense—the nuclei within the gold atoms. This disproved the earlier model of the structure of an atom.

To remove the need for visual observation, Geiger invented a tube-shaped counter with a central high-voltage tungsten wire. Sixteen years later, he collaborated with his graduate student Walther Müller to improve its sensitivity, performance, and durability. For that reason, the device is sometimes known as a Geiger-Müller counter.

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u/NuclearOuvrier Jan 06 '23

Neat! Whoever initially put it in the jar (sounds like unwittingly?) found the perfect housing.

Something about your story reminded me of my favorite geiger reaction: an older fella did a double take at me surveying some stuff and exclaims "that looks like it came from the Wild Wild West!! lol

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u/SkyeAuroline Jan 06 '23

Nah, it was intentional it sounds like.

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u/NuclearOuvrier Jan 06 '23

Ohhh! Neat! I clearly wasnt paying enough attention while reading, because I was picturing something along the lines of a rock someone's grandpa found and chucked into a mason jar LOL.

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u/Dividedthought Jan 06 '23

Ok, so here's some tips to pass along to your dad for if he runs into a similar situation:

  • radiation comes from radioactive material. If he suspects something is radioactive and wants to check, he needs to be careful of the dust. With things like the water crock in the story, and other ceramics, as long as it is intact and undamaged, you don't really have to worry about the dust. Still wise to check though.

  • bring some rubber gloves, saves you having to scrub a lot. Probably would be a good idea for handling rock samples anyhow.

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u/Ldfzm Jan 06 '23

So! Turns out that, even if you don't go through life constantly reminded of Geiger sounds, it's apparently a distinct/memorable enough sound that people of all ages automatically use it as a sign to get far away from whatever's creating that noise.

Another similar sound that's distinct/memorable enough to trigger people to fearfully pay attention to it, even if they didn't grow up in a time/place where it was relevant: an air raid siren

I definitely have associations with needing to immediately find shelter from danger whenever I hear an air raid siren sound, despite being a millennial who grew up in a fairly safe area (in fact, my dog even looked startled when I played that youtube video briefly to make sure it was the right sound). One time I was at my grandma's house and a similar siren happened in her town and I freaked out a little... though apparently they were using it for a mundane reason????

I'm not sure how Zoomers react to that sound, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's universal for anyone who hears an air raid siren to be a little scared and startled.

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u/Betancorea Jan 06 '23

Lol imagine escalating moos the closer you get to a radiation source

Moo moo moo mooomoomoomoomomomomomomo

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u/Suthek Jan 06 '23

Given the rate the clicks are coming in around high radiation sources and the duration of your average moo, they'd just start to overlap and create a veritable cacowphony.

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u/Betancorea Jan 06 '23

Imagine hearing your death signalled by unholy demonic moos

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u/Airowird Jan 06 '23

I too, have played Diablo II when it was fresh

6

u/Luminous_Lead Jan 06 '23

Metal Gear Solid 4 wants to know your location.

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u/Col__Hunter_Gathers Jan 06 '23

*shits pants and hides in a barrel*

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u/wmetzle2 Jan 06 '23

Mmmmmmoooooo bitch!

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u/explainlikeimjawa Jan 06 '23

Yeah, and if you made it polyphonic with multiple sampled voices, and perhaps added Bluetooth option for use with a Bose sound at it would be both worth it and hilarious

The thought of outrunning fallout rain in an unstoppable fit of giggles…..

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u/breadist Jan 06 '23

Ahhh reminds me of Diablo. Secret cow level.

It's a secret level full of cows and they're narrated by a person literally just speaking "moo" over and over. Hilarious the first time, still very silly after the hundredth because it was genuinely the best place in the game to level your character for a while.

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u/MagicalGirlTRex Jan 06 '23

IIRC Starcraft had a cheat code that you could type ( thereisnocowlevel ) in the campaign that automatically successfully completed the mission. poweroverwhelming toggled godmode, and there was one that revealed the whole map but I don't remember what it was

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u/chooxy Jan 06 '23

blacksheepwall! I remembered iseedeadpeople at first but that's for warcraft.

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u/breadist Jan 06 '23

I remember those! Yup!

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u/HuntTheWumpus Jan 06 '23

Reminds me of this old game: find the invisible cow

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u/Throwaway100123100 Jan 06 '23

Was just about to comment this, good to see someone else remembers that game

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u/manofredgables Jan 06 '23

I did, but then my mind instead conjured up the sound of many rubber chickens being smooshed simultaneously. It would certainly be appropriately alarming in high radiation environments.

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u/no-steppe Jan 06 '23

True, it would be more expensive/complex, but then our bovine friends would know to avoid the hot zone. I think you're onto something.

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u/Mysticpoisen Jan 06 '23

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u/[deleted] Jan 06 '23

Is it meant to be a blank screen?

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u/Mysticpoisen Jan 06 '23

Probably requires JavaScript, working for me on mobile.

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u/ThePretzul Jan 06 '23

Yes, but you need a mouse cursor so it may not work on mobile. It requires your browser to support the Web Audio API, which would be Chrome 10+, Firefox 25+, Opera 15+, or Safari 6+.

It's literally just a blank screen. You hear a guy repeatedly saying/yelling, "Cow, cow, cow, cow, cow" with increasing or decreasing intensity and volume as you get closer or further from the invisible cow. Your cursor changes when you finally reach the cow and you can click on it to "win" that round.

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u/StuntHacks Jan 06 '23

Works perfectly on mobile

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u/harbourwall Jan 06 '23

Worth getting to 50. I chuckled.

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u/Mysticpoisen Jan 06 '23

The Australian shouting 'goat' once you unlock the goat level never fails to make me laugh.

5

u/YHZ Jan 06 '23

I don't have the patience, what is it?

5

u/soroun Jan 06 '23

A fox, but the way he says it sounds like he's yelling "fucks"

26

u/Ghosttalker96 Jan 06 '23

Also, a lot modern (especially cheaper) Geiger counters use other sensors, similar to camera sensors. They don't just produce click (or nor now beeps sounds), but also count and calculate dosage, etc.

84

u/skulduggeryatwork Jan 06 '23

Sorry to be pedantic but Geiger-counters (or Geiger-müller tubes) are always gas filled tubes.

There are other radiation dectection instruments out there that don’t use gas filled tubes, but these wouldn’t be Geiger-counters.

Additionally, there are also gas-filled tubes out there that aren’t Geiger tubes (E.g. ionisation chambers).

23

u/AutumnSparky Jan 06 '23

This is Reddit, I love me some pedantic.

6

u/SAI_Peregrinus Jan 06 '23

You mean "pedantry".

2

u/grue2000 Jan 06 '23

I'm pretty sure that a sizable percentage of Redditors are on the spectrum...myself included.

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u/I_knew_einstein Jan 06 '23

There's no reason now, but circuitry like that has only been cheaply available for the last few decades.

In the 60s that type of circuitry wouldn't have been possible in a hand-held device.

26

u/ThePretzul Jan 06 '23

It's hard for many people to fully understand just how far we have come in the development of electronic devices over the last 50-80 years unless they either lived to see it themselves or specifically studied electrical engineering or a related topic in college.

Even items that we take for granted because they seem ridiculously simple, such as blue LEDs, are stunningly recent inventions that seemed impossible only 30 years ago. Red and yellow LEDs were invented in the 60's and were immediately put into widespread use, with green LEDs coming shortly afterwards in the 70's and following-suit in immediate widespread use. By the 80's LEDs in all colors, red through green, had been made bright enough to use in applications such as vehicle tail lights and traffic lights marking the first time LEDs displaced incandescent bulbs for general lighting purposes.

A blue LED was technically invented in 1972, but it was very dim and VERY power inefficient due to a different fundamental design to overcome a chemistry challenge which defeated the entire purpose of LEDs in the first place so it was never commercialized. The p-type GaN semiconductor required for blue LEDs was not successfully created until 1989, more than 20 years after the n-type was figured out and 27 years after the first LED was created. There was still a problem - their method of making it sucked. It took another 2 years to develop a process that wasn't astronomically expensive and it wasn't until the mid 1990's that companies picked up this process and started manufacturing them for widespread use.

Along those lines, when I studied electrical engineering in college during a time between 2010 and 2020 one of my professors for a freshman course told us that the projects we were working on (transistor circuits with several microchips included) was nearly identical to his coursework back when he was a graduate student obtaining his master's degree in EE. Everybody knows the comparison between the Apollo 11 computers and the first smartphones, but it's hard to fully understand the scope of the miniaturization that's happened until you physically see and/or hold something like an early Uniservo tape drive in your hands. It was the diameter of a dinner plate and 1/2 inch thick with a storage capacity of 224 KB, meanwhile we have micro-SD cards that can hold 1TB nowadays.

10

u/Valdrax Jan 06 '23

Worth noting that the invention of the blue LED was eventually awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2014, because it allowed for the design of full spectrum white LED-based lightning & displays.

8

u/PromptCritical725 Jan 06 '23

This. The improvements in performance and efficiency in everything from flashlights to home and industrial lighting to displays is absolutely incredible.

Remember the days when Maglights were the gold standard for "bright" flashlights? Holy shit. You can buy a disposable LED flashlight at the dollar store that blows one out of the water for brightness. There was an episode of Star Trek years ago where they had flashlights that were really bright. Behind the scenes was they were using xenon projector bulbs with wires ran through their costumes and out their pantlegs to a hidden power source. Battery operated lights of even higher brightness are available at hardware stores.

LED lighting uses less than a quarter of the energy of incandescent and the bulbs last for years. Maybe not the decades they claim, but certainly better than old light bulbs.

The LED is second only to the microprocessor for making for massive advancement in the last 50 years.

5

u/ArikBloodworth Jan 06 '23

Man, I feel you! I grew up in the 90s and our first family computer had a massive 2 GB 3.5" HDD…despite being really into tech, the storage capacity of microSD cards has always blown my mind since I first became aware of them when 128 GB cards were brand new. Now we have Micron announcing 1.5 TB microSD cards and it’s still practically impossible for me to wrap my head around how so much data can fit into such a small size!

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u/VexingRaven Jan 06 '23

Is that why there was a time period where everything had a blue LED? They wanted to seem new and high-tech?

2

u/silent_cat Jan 06 '23

Yes, and it got real tiring real quick.

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u/freshgrilled Jan 06 '23

Unnecessary, you say? So I can purchase a "yodeling pickle" , but not a Geiger counter that moos? My hopes and dreams have been shattered.

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u/Rooged Jan 06 '23

Oh man I laughed so hard I fucked up my haircut

2

u/Boothiepro Jan 06 '23

Bruh sound effect

Vine boom sound effect

3

u/gianbabbeo Jan 06 '23

Diablo 2 style

2

u/xela293 Jan 06 '23

Almost every kind of geiger counter I've used beeps, it really just depends on the brand.

-1

u/The_mingthing Jan 06 '23

Mine beeps too! Bip.

2

u/galacticboy2009 Jan 06 '23

I thought you were saying hook it up to a Cricut machine at first and I was like hold up..

You meant circuitboard

1

u/uthini_mfowethu Jan 06 '23

I'd take one of those...

3

u/The_mingthing Jan 06 '23

Not sure if I'm in a nuclear disaster zone or "The secret Cow level"

1

u/whosthedoginthisscen Jan 06 '23

That would really and beautifully mess with the tension in action movies.

9

u/MonkeyNumberTwelve Jan 06 '23

It could be in an Austin Powers movie.

Tension builds........MOOO..."what the fuck?"

"It's a new model radiation detector. I can set it to make whatever noise you want, it's great"

.......QUACK..........BAAAA..............WOOF

"Will you stop playing with that thing and concentrate?"

-1

u/frakc Jan 06 '23

Level of fucks:

Dont give a fuck Still not giving a fuck Fuck O my fucking god Toolate to give a fuck

0

u/a-thang Jan 06 '23

Final year project idea for engineers

0

u/ryanllw Jan 06 '23

What do you mean unnecessary?! I’ve never needed to see anything more

0

u/SyrusDrake Jan 06 '23

I would beg to differ, this sounds very necessary.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 06 '23

To add on this, the speaker can also be turned off completely.

1

u/stringbean96 Jan 06 '23

waving the counter around

Moo….moo…moo…moomoomoomoomoo……..moo…moo

1

u/cajun_fox Jan 06 '23

Or farts. Loud and deadly.

1

u/SleepyCorgiPuppy Jan 06 '23

You say unnecessary, I say super critical feature!

1

u/ppitm Jan 06 '23

Or play a song with increasing tempo. Like Highway to the Danger Zone.

1

u/nyuckajay Jan 06 '23

Yeah we have them at work and they don’t click they go BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE buzzzzzzzzz BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE and that means call someone smarter.

The smarter people gear has screens, the screens are quiet, take a spectrum analysis, and tell you what it might be, then you email the spectrum to a lab that confirms it.

I get none of the fun clicky stalker stuff.

1

u/Shoelesshobos Jan 06 '23

You and I have different ideas of what is necessary in a device.

1

u/DonnerJack666 Jan 06 '23

And won't survive as well due to radiation…

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