The Garage-Built Rubidium Standard discussion brought to mind an
experimental
setup in a physics lab at U. C. Berkeley years ago. It was one of a
number of
elective experiments for the laboratory section of a Modern Physics
course.
The objective was probably to demonstrate Zeeman line
The RB-87 isotope used in Rubidium standards is radioactive, but at such
a slight activity level that special procedures and shielding must be
used to measure it. Any chunk of granite, including your fancy kitchen
counters, far outshines RB-87 as a radiation source! A garage built
Rubidium
