A long time ago Brian of London trained to a rather high level
as a physicist. He even spent some time studying medical physics
and even the medical effects of radiation. One of the
Universitites I studied in was associated with a research
hospital with a rather fun room in the basement. This room was
called the “Low Activity Suite”. That wasn’t a place with comfy
recliner chairs and nurses to bring you drinks: the low activity
meant low radiological activity. The room was made from 2ft
thick walls of steel. The steel was forged (and this is very
important) before WWII meaning it was fixed into its atomic
structure before we started splitting atoms in the atmosphere.
This steel had once been part of the armour on a British
battleship long since de-commissioned. We used to work on
measuring the presence of minute quantities of radioactive
substances: quantities so small that if we tried to detect their
emissions outside this room, our instruments would only record
what’s called the “background radiation”. I on