Engineers need to track the movement of sewage through enclosed metal pipes at a treatment plant. They can add either an alpha-emitting tracer or a gamma-emitting tracer to the sewage and take readings with a detector outside the pipes.
Explain which of the two tracers the engineers should select.
97 exam-style questions on Edexcel GCSE Physics 6.5 Uses and dangers of radioactivity, covering 6.5.1 Uses of radioactivity, 6.5.2 Dangers of ionising radiation and precautions, 6.5.3 Half-life and radiation dangers, 6.5.4 Safety precautions for radiation exposure, and 6.5.5 Contamination and irradiation. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.