Measurement of Radioactive Isotopes

Abstract

RADIOACTIVE isotopes, now articles of commerce, are finding increasing uses in biological and medical experiments and even in clinical treatment of diseases. For these reasons the determination of the number of radioactive atoms in a sample of radioactive isotope has become a matter of great importance. Uniform quantitative results in all laboratories can be obtained only by using procedures that will yield absolute measurements or by the use of uniform standards of comparison that will, under proper conditions of measurement, give the same result whenever the determination is made. Establishment of standards for radioisotope measurements—as for quantitative measurements in all fields of physical science—is the responsibility of the National Bureau of Standards. Detailed and accurate information must therefore be made available so that standard radioactive samples being furnished by the bureau to biological, medical, educational, and industrial laboratories can be used in a way to assure correct and relia...