Allen Dick said:
> in the case of particle radiation (as opposed to electron beam
> radiation (what exactly is the difference, Jim?
In a word, "mass".
> -- I though all radiation could be treated as either)) --
Nope, it makes a BIG difference depending on what one accelerates.
As a general rule, more mass means more "damage", which makes
sense when you consider the relative effects of 22 caliber
rounds, .308 Winchester rounds, 9mm rounds, and 45 caliber
rounds on a soda can. Muzzle velocity differences matter little here.
Going from least damaging to most, we have all sorts of "particles"
that our woodenware encounters:
Neutrinos - These things have either "no mass", or such a tiny
mass that it would make your head spin. Since
they are so lightweight, such particles can (and DO)
go right through your head, apparently without damaging
a single neuron. Don't worry about this, as there is
nothing you can do about it, and they have been
whizzing through everything forever. The name always
makes me smile ("Neutrinos - the breakfast of physicists")
Photons - These things also are said to have "no mass", but many folks
guess that they weigh one 0.00000000000000000000039th
of what an electron does. Photons are light itself, nothing more.
Harmless. They bounce off just about anything, and even the
best glass makes them take screeching turns at sharp angles.
(One is forced to wonder why Star Trek characters kept firing
"photon torpedoes" at the Klingons. Don't ask me.) Photons
are supposed to be the fastest particle around - they move at,
surprisingly, "the speed of light".
Alpha Particles - These things are bigger, but still very tiny
(6 x 10 to the -27 kg) and are another unavoidable thing,
harmless to life. These things caused all sorts of problems
for memory chips back in the late 1970s, until Motorola
figured out that the glue-on tops for ceramic memory chips
needed overlap the edges of the openings more. Alpha particle
"storms" can still turn million-dollar satellites into space
junk, and have lobotomized more than one router under our
care and feeding in the past decade (at least that is what
Cisco said in their post-mortem reports).
All of the above are clearly useless to a beekeeper with AFB problems.
Electrons - These are the lightest common particle that one can cheaply
isolate, and they clearly will do "less damage" than neutrons
or protons. E-Beam >>>WILL<<< kill bacteria, like AFB, but
it will just as quickly kill bees, eggs, larvae, seeds, whatever.
E-beam is NOT harmless.
Everything Else - Anything else is MUCH more massive than an electron, and
can kill people in short order. The effect on wood is
simply a scaled-down version of what would happen if you
started shooting bullets at a sheet of plywood. At some
point, the wood turns into "swiss cheese", and falls apart
under its own weight.
> brood boxes deteriorate after several trips through the device.
> After several trips, the wood gets soft and the nails fall out.
Any microscope should be able to see the difference after several trips
through a non-E-Beam beam. The 1,000x lens ought to do.
Instant "dry rot" of a sort.
> I've asked the guys who use electron beam and they say they
> don't see any ill effects.
Well, a neutron is about 1837 times as massive as an electron, so it
would be more than a thousand times "more damaging" at equal velocity.
Since a single trip through a "heavy-particle beam" does not seem to hurt
woodenware, E-beam should be good for several lifetimes of even monthly
treatments.
But I continue to promote a much simpler, cheaper tool for AFB-infected woodenware -
a Bic lighter. :)
Years ago, I was helping my eldest son with his schoolwork,
and the following was said in regard to photons:
Me: "OK, you have E=hv .... so what's 'h'"?
Max: "Planck's Constant".
Me: "Right... and what's 'v'?"
Max: "The length of the plank?"
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