The Atomic Puzzler!

Gamma, the radiation sniffing dog, has gone back in time and nearly choked himself to death on uranium dust in some private factories that were hired by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission to process natural uranium during the 1940s and 1950s. But Gamma lived to tell the tale. From the deposition of uranium on his fur, he has concluded that: the uranium in air the that workers were breathing was 1,200 dpm per cubic meter (a cubic meter is about 264 gallons) the solubility of the uranium was moderate, so that breathing in 1 bequerel of uranium dust (=60 dpm) gives a radiation dose to the lung of about 4.2 millirem. (This is called the lung dose conversion factor for inhalation - this specific number relates to uranium of a particular solubility.) Gamma then proceeded to estimate the following: The number of bequerels that a worker would inhale in an 8 hour working day, if he breathes in 1.2 cubic meters per hour. The number of bequerels that a worker would breathe in over a three-year period if he worked 230 days per year. The daily radiation dose to the lung. The total radiation dose to the lung over the work period of 3 years. Gamma also compared the lung dose to then then-prevailing standard (maximum allowable dose) of 15 rem per year. How many times the maximum allowable dose did this worker get every year? Answer problems 1-5 so Gamma can check his work against yours. Remember: dpm means disintegrations per minute bequerel (abbreviated Bq) means disintegrations per second (dps) 1000 millirem (abbreviated mrem) = 1 rem

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