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Tag Archives: safety
Plug wiring colour scheme
UK plugs use brown insulation for the live wire, blue insulation for the neutral wire and green with yellow stripes insulation for the earth wire. But why this particular combination of colours? The answer is deceptively simple: there is no type … Continue reading
Tagged colour, electricity, plug, safety
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How does the damage caused by exposure to radiation vary as the dose of radiation increases?
Most people assume that if you double the amount of radiation you double the damage caused, and that there is no threshold below which no damage is done. This is called the Linear No Threshold (LNT) model and is represented … Continue reading
Tagged health, nuclear, radioactivity, safety
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Long half-life ≠ dangerous
Nuclear waste is often quoted as having a “half-life of millions of years” as if this is a bad thing in and of itself.* But there’s another way of looking at it. Radioactive decay occurs when an unstable atom emits either … Continue reading
Tagged halflife, nuclear, safety
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A BP anecdote
You might have noticed that BP is in the news at the moment. Some people have accused it of taking a rather lax approach to safety. Every year I support a team taking part in the Engineering Education Scheme run by … Continue reading
Tagged BP, safety
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A cautionary tale
If you’ve ever been involved with weather monitoring you’ll know that a spherical lens can focus sunlight to a point. The Campbell-Stokes sunlight recorder counts the hours of sunlight per day by burning a trail across a calibrated sheet of paper. … Continue reading
Tagged safety, sun
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